


Ectober 2018 One-Shots

by DarkNymfa



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bonding, Character Death, Crossover, Family, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Humor, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, Not Phantom Planet Compliant, Swearing, a little bit because sometimes 'crud' just doesn't cut it for me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-04 23:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16355984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkNymfa/pseuds/DarkNymfa
Summary: One-shot collection of fics for thickerthanectoplasm's Ectober Week. Fics vary in length, genre, and exact setting, and are unconnected unless stated otherwise in the notes.Content warnings can be found at the start of every chapter/fic.





	1. The Witching Hour

**Author's Note:**

> No content warnings apply.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maddie set out to learn more about the Witching Hour, but instead she learns more about Amity Park's most mysterious ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No content warnings apply.

It was a quiet night in the Fenton household, as midnight fast approached and its residents had already gone to bed. Well, all residents bar one, evidenced by the soft scuffling coming from the basement lab, where Maddie Fenton was making use of the peace and quiet to get some additional work in. While Maddie dearly loved her husband, sometimes she just needed some silence around her so she could tinker in peace, letting her thoughts run wild.

It was the late hour that reminded Maddie of old superstitions, and how they usually found a basis in the truth, even if far derived from it. She had, for example, always wondered why people called it the Witching Hour, rather than something more sensible like the Haunting Hour. It was common knowledge, after all, that the increased supernatural activity after midnight was caused by ghosts.

Well, it was common knowledge that ghosts were more active in the hour after midnight, but Maddie had never heard of anyone figuring out _why_ they were more active during the Witching Hour. A quick glance at the clock told her it was almost midnight, and Maddie decided that she might as well go out and try to decipher this newly revealed mystery. Even if she couldn’t find any answers, she might be able to catch a ghost or two for her and Jack to experiment on.

And so, with newfound purpose, Maddie quickly loaded herself up with ghost-hunting weaponry, slinging a large net gun across her back and grabbing a smaller ecto-gun that she could hold in a single hand. Another glance at the clock told her that midnight had now passed, and she quietly left the house. She contemplated taking the GAV, but decided against it, figuring that there would be plenty of ghosts near the house, and not wanting to risk waking up her family.

 

Roughly thirty minutes later Maddie still had not seen even the slightest hint of a ghost, and she had started to regret not bringing a ghost tracking device like the Fenton Finder. There had been many different papers on the increased activity of ghosts throughout the night, and by many different researchers as well, so clearly it wasn’t just common folklore. So then where were the ghosts, who showed themselves so frequently during the day?

She was snapped out of her thoughts by a flash of green light from a nearby alley, which was soon followed by a flash of blue-white light as she cautiously made her way over. Quickly checking that her gun was still charged (it was) and that the safety was off (it was), she suddenly rounded the corner, staring right into a pair of glowing green eyes.

Stepping backwards, she raised the gun and held down the trigger to charge up a shot, watching as the ghost on the other end raised his hands as if surrendering.

There was no mistaking him, between the snow-white hair, the glowing acid-green eyes, and the black jumpsuit with that ridiculous logo. It was the ghost boy himself, Danny Phantom.

It was a rare opportunity to capture him, as Phantom was rarely seen outside of his fights with other ghosts, and was quick to flee once the other ghost was defeated. Oh, if only Jack were here, so he could have captured Phantom while she kept her gun trained on him. She knew that the moment she lowered her gun he would disappear, running off to wherever he went when he wasn’t causing trouble in Amity Park.

But perhaps, if she could not capture him, she could still use this moment to learn more about ghosts. After all, she did set out to solve the mystery of why ghosts were more active during the night, and there must have been something that drew Phantom out of hiding.

“Hey, uh, Maddie,” the ghost stammered out, apprehensively eyeing the gun in her hands.

Maddie smirked back, knowing that Phantom was at her mercy. This close, there was no way she could miss, and clearly the ghost knew it. Too bad that the ecto-gun wasn’t strong enough to stop him from running, only to injure him.

The ghost shuffled his feet, clearly playing up the part of an awkward teen, hands still raised in surrender, eyes now darting between the gun aimed at his chest and her face, as if he were trying to read her expression without losing sight of her weapon.

“So uh, from one ghost hunter to another, any chance you could maybe not shoot me?” he said as his eyes settled on her face, looking at her with a somewhat hopeful expression.

Maddie scoffed and watched as his expression withered in a surprisingly good mimicking of human emotions. “From one ghost hunter to another, huh?”

His eyes darted back to her gun, a calculating look coming over him. She fingered the trigger, a silent warning, and one he clearly understood as he licked his lips and glanced back at her face with no clear emotions on his face. Seeing that he seemed to be contemplating the risk of attacking her, Maddie decided to put out her offer before it was too late.

“Well Phantom, perhaps we can strike a deal then, hmm?” Confusion flooded his face, suspicion clear in his eyes.

“What kind of deal?” he asked, starting to get twitchy. He clearly wanted to flee but was too curious to leave.

“I want information on ghosts. You answer my questions, and I’ll let you go without shooting you.” The gun in her hands had quieted, having long since reached its maximum charge. Phantom finally took his eyes off of her, and her gun, to dart a glance around their environment, before nodding.

“Yeah, okay. Any chance you’ll lower your gun while I’m answering you?” He shot her what was probably supposed to be a disarming smile, but the glowing green eyes ruined the effect for Maddie. Taking her silence for a no, he sighed, dropping his hands slightly.

“Yeah, I figured as much. Let’s get this over with, then. What do you want to know?”

“Why are you out here, Phantom?” His brow furrowed in confusion, hands dropping completely as he stammered out a reply. “What?”

Maddie sighed, still keeping the gun aimed at his chest. “I asked, Phantom, what you were doing out here. Why are you out in this alley at this time of night?”

“Oh,” he huffed, raising one of his hands to rub the back of his neck. “The Box Ghost was causing a ruckus so I came to capture him.”

Now it was Maddie’s turn to frown in confusion. “Not out here for your own pleasure, then?”

“No way. The only good thing about being outside this late is the stars. It's kind of amazing how well you can see them in this town, especially considering how bright your sign is," he answered as he dropped the hand that was rubbing his neck.

Maddie bit back her first response trying to defend the FentonWorks sign that her husband loved so much, instead focusing on something else he said. “You… like the stars?”

"Yeah, ever since I was a kid.” He shrugged at her, managing to look even more like a teenager than he normally did. “Wanted to be an astronaut, but protecting this town was more important."

Maddie felt her frown deepen as she lowered the gun a little. “An astronaut huh? That’s a pretty unlikely career, isn’t it?”

Phantom shrugged again before answering. “I mean, I’m a ghost. There’s nothing stopping me from going into space. It’s not like I need air or anything, and there are no ghost hunters in space either. If anything, it would probably be a lot safer for me.”

“So why stay here? Why not go into space and chase your dreams?” Maddie wasn’t sure why she asked him. Maybe it was because Phantom reminded her of Danny in the moment, an awkward teenager who dreamed of space, rather than a dangerous ghost.

Phantom frowned, taking his eyes off of her and instead turning away, before sighing deeply. “Somebody has to protect this town from ghosts, Maddie. And while you and Jack and the Huntress are good at this stuff, you’re still at a natural disadvantage. I just,” he sighs again and runs his hands through his hair, messing his chaotic hair up ever further. “I just don’t want anybody to get hurt, you know?”

Maddie had never understood how others had fallen for Phantom’s heroic disguise, but suddenly she saw what they had seen. As much as she had always believed her research, that ghosts were purely malevolent beings with no emotions, Phantom simply seemed too genuine. She had always thought of him as a great actor, but this was far beyond the scope of acting.

Conflicted, she fully lowered the gun but kept her finger on the trigger, in case it all turned out to be a ruse to get her to lower her guard, but he didn’t even turn around. She was starting to regret her decision to question Phantom. It seemed that for every answer he gave her, she just got more and more confused.

“You don’t even want _us_ to get hurt, despite the fact that we hunted you?”

“No, not even you,” he said, as he finally turned back around, shaking his head softly but keeping his gaze downward.

Finally releasing the trigger, Maddie let go of the gun with one hand, returning to a more casual stance. Whether Phantom’s sentiment was genuine or not, he clearly had no intention of hurting her in the moment, and she had no interest in shooting him anymore. Apparently the movement caught Phantom off guard, as he broke his staring contest with the floor to glance up at her, one brow quirked up in a silent question.

“What? The deal was that if you answered my questions I would let you go without shooting. You’ve answered my questions, so there is no need for the gun anymore, is there?” she said, quirking up her own brow.

“Uh, no, no, it’s fine!” he agreed, wide-eyed as if in disbelief that she would actually let him leave without shooting him. He floated up a little higher, glancing around their surroundings once more before returning his gaze to her.

“Does this mean that you believe what I’ve been saying all this time? That I just want to protect this town?” Ah, the million-dollar question. Quite honestly, Maddie didn’t know if she believed him or not, but she could hardly tell Phantom that. Instead, she attempted to skirt around his question.

“Phantom, even if you do intend to protect this town, surely you’ve noticed the amount of damage you cause in the process?” Seeing him wince was answer enough, both to the question she asked and the one she didn’t. “You do, then.”

“Yeah, well, there’s only so much I can do to stop a ghost from slamming me into the floor, you know? Plus, imagine the kind of damage they would do if I weren’t here to fight them. At least most of their attacks are aimed away from the street if they’re shooting at me.” He tried to smile at her again, but it looked more like a grimace. He clearly didn’t like the damage he caused either.

“I see...” she mumbled, as she tried to process everything she had learned this night. Phantom fidgeted a little, raising himself a little further into the air, as he clearly wanted to leave without breaking the awkward peace they had made.

“I’ll need more time to think everything through, Phantom. But maybe-” his wide eyes filled with a hesitant hope, and Maddie damned herself for seeing him as an innocent child instead of the powerful ghost he was. “Maybe we can… establish some sort of truce.”

He nodded eagerly, answering with a voice so filled with hope that Maddie could feel the last of her resolve crumble. “Of course, I completely understand. Thanks for listening to me.”

Maddie couldn’t stop the smile that formed on her face as she waved him off with her empty hand. “Go on then Phantom, I’m sure you have better things to do at this time of night.” Seeing him hesitate, she spoke again. “I’m sure we’ll speak again, okay?”

He nodded, more firmly this time, before turning around and finally flying off. Maddie watched him disappear into the night sky, spectral tail trailing behind him as he became little more than a glowing dot in the distance, before she lost track of him entirely.

Sighing deeply, she pulled her hood off of her head and stuck the ecto-gun in an empty holster on her belt before looking at her watch. It was past 1 in the morning. The Witching Hour was over, and ghost activity would be declining. She had missed her opportunity to figure out the mystery that she had set out to solve, but she had learned about something much more valuable instead.

Wandering back towards her home, Maddie couldn’t help looking up at the stars, wondering if Phantom was watching them as well. As she reached the corner of the street and could finally see FentonWorks in all its glory, she thought that she saw a soft white glow coming from the top of the Ops Center. She frowned, but after she blinked the glow appeared to be gone. Must have been a reflection of the light from the sign, or perhaps she simply imagined it. It was getting late, after all.

Tomorrow, she knew, would be a busy day. She had to work through the conversation she had had with Phantom, to try and decipher any hidden meanings behind his words, and she would have to talk with Jack about it was well.

But first, it was time for bed. Phantom could wait.


	2. Disappearance + Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fentons come home to find their Ghost Portal active and their son missing. This is only the start of their problems, however, as ghosts start attacking their city. And who is this mysterious Phantom?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Suggested character death (canon DP stuff but still), Swearing (like... the f-word once)
> 
> Also known as "that one one-shot that totally escalated beyond my control" and "this would probably work better as a full fic instead". Also, as a musical recommendation, I kinda like the song Sweetie Little Jean by Cage the Elephant for this fic.

Looking back, his decision to check out a malfunctioning portal into a different dimension while alone at home probably wasn’t the best idea Danny has ever had. He wasn’t sure if he believed that it _could_ work, because for all his parents enthusiasm about ghosts, they had never seen any. But his parents had worked so hard on building the entire thing, and they seemed so sad when it failed to activate, that Danny couldn’t help but take a closer look. Maybe there was something simple that they had missed, something obvious. And if he could figure out what went wrong and fix it, well, a world that no living human had seen before _was_ pretty cool.

And so when Jazz had left for the library and dragged their parents outside as well, Danny made his way to the lab. The Portal was set in the back wall, the cavernous tunnel dark and looming. Danny repressed a shiver as he walked over, stifling his disappointment that there was no glaring mistake visible from outside the Portal.

Turning back around, Danny wandered off to a hidden closet and grabbed one of the few jumpsuits his parents made in his size. While he wasn’t sure what the purpose of the suits was in relation to ghost-hunting, he knew that they protected his parents while they worked in the lab, and if he was going to take a closer look at the Portal, he should probably wear the same protective clothing.

Quickly putting on the jumpsuit, Danny glanced at his reflection in the mirror and made a face, then peeled off the bizarre sticker of his dad’s face that was plastered on his chest. The suit was rather tight but not uncomfortable, didn’t restrict his movements much, and it was surprisingly neutral in coloration, bright white instead of the teal and bright orange that his parents preferred.

Flexing his fingers within the black gloves, Danny hesitantly made his way back over to the Portal before groaning in frustration at himself. He wanted to help his parents by checking out the Portal, so why was he suddenly so sure that it was a bad idea? He ran his fingers through his hair, rolled his eyes at his own stupidity, and then crossed the last stretch between him and the Portal.

It was even more impressive up close, with the entrance made out of an arch of metal and complicated electronics, and while the tunnel beyond it was quickly swallowed by darkness, the little Danny could see was clearly similar.

Crossing the opening of the Portal, Danny put one hand on the wall to his left for support (wouldn’t want to trip and damage the electronics, after all) and started walking further into the tunnel. He tried to see if there was anything obviously wrong, an unconnected cable or a loose panel or something, as he slowly picked his way through the cables that sprawled all over the floor.

He suddenly felt part of the wall that he was leaning against give with a rather ominous click, and looked at it as he turned towards the wall. Pulling his hand away revealed a green button, with a red button right next to it. Both had labels, with the green one labeled as ON, and the red one as OFF. Danny groaned as he realized that his parents must have forgotten to hit the on/off switch on the inside of the Portal, and closed his eyes in relief that he had been able to help.

His eyes shot open immediately when he heard a mechanical whine, as he was hit with the realization that no one had unplugged the Portal when it had failed to activate. This revelation wasn’t fast enough, however, as the Portal lit up in a blinding flash, and Danny saw nothing but white.

It was followed almost instantly by pain beyond description, of an intensity Danny had never felt before, lighting up every fibre of his body. He could see nothing and feeling nothing beside the immense pain, but he could hear a haunting wail echoing all around him.

The pain left as suddenly as it had come, and Danny found that he had fallen to the floor of the Portal at some point. Pushing himself up again, he realized that the awful sound had been his own scream, as it continued to echo throughout the tunnel.

Putting his hand on the wall of the Portal again, Danny looked around to see if he could see the light of the lab, but saw only darkness. Unsure if it was because he was too deep, or because he was still blinded by the flash, he instead tried to listen to the echoes of his scream. Hearing the echoes originating on his left side, Danny assumed that that must be the back of the tunnel, and turned to his right, slowly stumbling in that direction.

Later, Danny would realize that the reason the echoes were only coming from one direction wasn’t because the sound didn’t echo in the lab, but because there was no back to the tunnel anymore. The echoes he heard didn’t originate at the back of the tunnel like he had thought, but instead came from the lab. This terrible mistake could have been prevented had he not been in the lab alone, as he could have followed the sounds of other people back to the lab instead of having to guess based on echoes.

But, unfortunately for Danny, he had entered the lab alone, and his assumption, while logical, lead him into the wrong direction.

 

Danny groaned as he woke up, moving to rub the sleep out of eyes as he tried to remember when he had fallen asleep. He stopped immediately as he felt the glove of a jumpsuit touch his face, and he realized he hadn’t fallen asleep, but that he must have passed out after the Portal activated.

He pushed himself up, and was shocked that he felt no lingering pain from whatever happened in the Portal. Rubbing the sleep out his eyes with the heel of his hand, he groaned again in exasperation. How could he have been so stupid to walk into the Portal without making sure it was unplugged! He might not be a genius like Jazz, but he never thought of himself as idiotic enough to forget something so simple. He could have died!

Keeping his head bend down to avoid the sharp lights of the lab, Danny slowly opened his eyes, glanced at the hands resting in his lab, and then blinked a few times rapidly, trying to clear his vision. While his sight seemed perfectly clear, the gloves he was wearing looked white instead of the black they should have been, and the jumpsuit itself appeared to be black instead.

He twitched his fingers and watched as they answered as expected, the white gloves behaving just like they did before. Did that flash somehow mess up his vision, and were all colors now inverted?

Frowning, he pulled off one of the gloves, and flexed the hand underneath. At first glance, it looked like it always had, but as Danny looked closer, he realized that it seemed to be glowing slightly. Looking over at his other hand, he realized that both the hand and the glove it held also appeared to be glowing. Maybe the activation of the Portal released some kind of radioactivity? Radioactive stuff always glowed in cartoons, so there must be something true about that, right? But then why were the colors of his jumpsuit inverted? Some kind of weird effect between the radioactive chemical and the materials of his suit? Unlikely, but not the weirdest thing that had happened in the Fenton household.

Pulling the glove back on, he inspected the rest of his outfit. The gloves, boots, belt, and collar had all changed to pure white, while the suit itself had become a deep black. The color appeared to be spread evenly, with no missed spots of flecks or anything to show that it was caused by a chemical, making it look like the suit had always been like this.

Putting his elbow on his knee and laying his head on the palm, he closed his eyes and groaned once more. Forget his good intentions, his parents were gonna kill him for endangering himself in their lab. Who knows what that radioactive blast from the Portal did to him!

Lifting his head back up, he slowly dragged his hand down from his forehead until it rested on his face, and huffed in frustration as he opened his eyes. His still-rambling thoughts suddenly halted as he saw the hairs he had inadvertently pinned to his head.

Straightening up, Danny grabbed the front locks of his hair and pulled them down in front of his eyes so he could see them better. Instead of the pure black it had always been, his hair seemed to have followed the example of his suit and inverted colors as well, as the locks he held were white as fresh snow. The effects of the flash apparently weren’t limited to just his suit.

Wait, if it inverted the color of his hair as well, why didn’t his skin change? And what about his eyes? What color was sky blue inverted anyway? Maybe it only flipped black and white, but then did it change the color of his teeth and eye-whites as well? Forget the old-man hair, black teeth would be freaky as hell.

Deciding he should probably stop freaking out and check out his reflection in a mirror, he finally looked around himself, and promptly realized that he wasn’t in the lab at all. Instead he appeared to be in some kind of wide open space, the sky black but starless, and with some bizarre green substance swirling around instead. He could see several islands floating in the sky all around him, in various sizes but none of them very big. Even more strangely, there also appeared to be several purple doors floating around, all with various styles of decoration.

Looking at the ground he was sat on, he saw that it was another island, barely bigger than himself and sparsely covered with vibrant green grass. He wondered where he was and how he had gotten there, and then groaned as he realized that if the Portal did indeed work, then this must be the Ghost Zone.

Getting to his feet, Danny started to inspect his environment with a little more care. If this was the Ghost Zone, which seemed increasingly likely, then the Portal should be present on this side as well. After all, it was supposed to be a permanent doorway between the ‘real’ world and the ‘ghost’ world, and a doorway could be accessed from both sides.

But as he slowly turned in a circle, Danny couldn’t find the metal arch of the Portal, and he realized that it was probably only build on the open side of the tunnel. He had no idea what the Portal would look like without the frame, and he couldn’t see anything that looked like it might be the Portal, either. Only a few more islands, including a fairly large one in the distance which appeared to have some sort of trees growing on it. If this was, in fact, the world where ghosts came from, then shouldn’t the trees be dead as well? Were these some sort of ghost trees?

He snapped out of his distracted contemplation when he saw his hand fade out of sight, and blinked rapidly in the hope that it would return. When it didn’t, he lifted up his other arm and saw that it had vanished as well, and a glance down confirmed that the rest of his body had also disappeared. Shocked, he pulled his hands closer to himself, and was surprised but somewhat relieved to feel both gloved hands press against his chest.

Danny inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down. Alright, so he just… turned invisible or something. Probably another side-effect from the Portal activation, and probably temporary, since it only just happened. Exhaling again, Danny opened his eyes to find that he had indeed returned to visibility.

Closing his eyes to take another deep breath, Danny didn’t notice that he had started to slowly sink through the floor. When he exhaled, however, he had angled his head down, and was thus granted a startling view of his feet missing from the ankle down, the ground hiding the rest. He yelped, startled, and jumped up, trying to pull his feet from the floor. They came loose effortlessly, slipping through the floor as if it wasn’t even there, but then they followed the momentum of his body and left the ground entirely.

Danny blinked, baffled, as he saw the distance between his boots and the island slowly increase. Realizing that he seemed to be floating away, he twisted himself around, trying to flail himself back to the solid ground he had woken up on. Gravity chose that moment to make itself known again, and Danny fell down onto the island with a loud thump.

Rolling himself back onto his back, Danny tried to collect his thoughts to figure out what just happened. “Okay, come on Fenton, deep breaths,” he muttered to himself. “Let’s just- Let’s try to summarize what just happened.”

Taking a deep breath, he pulled himself back into a sitting position, distractedly playing with the hem of his glove. “So, I turned on my parents’ Ghost Portal while I was inside it. There was a great big flash, and then a lot of pain, and then suddenly it was gone again. I must have blacked out after that, because I woke up here. Here being,” he glanced around himself, taking in the ever-shifting green sky and the floating islands. “Here being the Ghost Zone, I guess. For some reason, the colors of my suit and my hair are flipped, with black now being white and white now being black. And I appear to be glowing too.”

He pulled his legs up, wrapping his arms around them and laying his head on his knees before continuing to talk to himself. “And to make things weirder, just now I disappeared from sight, then I sunk through the island, and then I hovered above it, almost floating away. It’s just… surely the Portal can’t have caused all these weird symptoms? I mean, invisibility, going through solid objects, and floating? That’s like...” he trailed off, before gasping out loud.

“It’s all ghost stuff. Invisibility, floating, and… what do my parents call it? Intangibility? They’re all basic ghost powers, according to them.” His eyes suddenly widened in realization. “I get in an accident with the Portal, it hurts a lot before suddenly stopping like it never happened, and I wake up in the Ghost Zone with ghost powers. God, I’m an idiot,” he groaned out loud, releasing his hold on his knees to push the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I must have- I must have died in the Portal, and now I’m a ghost in the Ghost Zone.” Straightening out again, he glanced around once more as another realization came to him. “That’s why there is no Portal on this side! It didn’t actually work, or if it did then it didn’t stay open. I woke up here because… because I’m a ghost now.”

“Oh crud, I’m a ghost now. My parents are gonna kill me,” he muttered, before gasping again. “Oh no, my parents! And god, Jazz, and Sam and Tucker as well. They’re all gonna be so hurt about this… No doubt that mom and dad are going to feel so guilty about letting one of their inventions hurt me, let alone kill me! And Jazz… She has always hated their obsession with ghosts, and now it,” Danny gulped, “and now it killed me. And Sam and Tucker are gonna be devastated, too.”

“I don’t even know if I __should__ find a way back home. I mean, I’m a ghost now, right? So I guess I should… stay here in the Ghost Zone?”

Hesitantly pushing himself back into a standing position, Danny looked at the area around the island again. The doors and islands appeared to be slowly drifting around, as if they were carried around by some sort of breeze, but they were moving so slowly that it was almost unnoticeable. The big island with trees appeared to be either static, or it was moving so slowly that Danny couldn’t tell the difference.

“I guess- I guess this is where I live now, then? Or, well, not live, but exist, I guess? Man, this is beyond confusing. Mom and dad never mentioned how confusing death is...”

“Actually, a lot of the things mom and dad said about ghosts don’t seem to be right. I mean, didn’t they say that ghosts were driven by obsessions, and that they couldn’t remember who they were when they were alive? Maybe,” he gulped, “maybe that comes with time? I don’t know if that would be an improvement over this, really. But I’ll figure that out as I go, I guess. For now, let’s focus on one thing at a time, starting with making my way over to that big island in the distance.”

He frowned in thought, trying to think of a way to test if gravity existed in the Ghost Zone, before face palming. “Duh, I’m an idiot. Ghosts can fly. I just have to figure out how I did it before.”

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Danny tried to focus on the weightless feeling from before. Opening his eyes, he was startled to find that it had worked, and crashed back into the ground. “Alright, so I need to focus for it to work, at least for now. That’s good to know. Let’s try this again.”

Once again closing his eyes and focusing on the feeling, Danny mentally prepared himself to finding himself floating above the island and opened his eyes. This time he stayed in the air, and he took the island he had targeted in his sight.

“So now, I just need to move in that direction. Somehow.”

Taking another deep breath but keeping his eyes open, Danny focused on the distant island and tried to just… force his body to go towards it. When it didn’t immediately work, he sighed deeply.

“So how am I supposed to make myself move? Do I have to pose like Superman or something?” he muttered in exasperation, before jokingly mimicking a superhero pose, straightening out his body and shoving his clenched fists in front of him. He immediately jarred forward, body following the direction of his fists. Startled, he dropped his hands again, but his body didn’t stop as suddenly as it had started, and he tumbled in mid-air, managing to catch himself before he fell back onto the island. “Okay, so that worked somehow. So now I just gotta make my way over to that island.”

Righting himself with a twist of his body, he shoved his fists in front of his face again, this time allowing his body to continue in said direction, slowly picking up speed as he approached the island.

Danny wasn’t sure what he was going to do after he got to the island, but well, he could figure this out as he went. After all, he was already dead, what else could happen to him?

* * *

"Danny sweetie, we’re home!” Maddie called as she entered the house, but no answer came. He mustn’t have heard her, probably playing one of his video games or something, she decided.

Walking through the living room of FentonWorks and into the kitchen, Maddie frowned as she found the door to the lab open. She was pretty sure that they had closed it when they left, and the kids weren’t allowed in the lab without supervision. Glancing back at her husband who had followed her into the kitchen carrying some groceries, she asked. “Jack, we closed to door to the lab when we left, right?”

Jack nodded before answering. “Yeah, we did. Do you think Danny went to check it out?” He gasped. “Maybe he’s interested in ghosts but didn’t know how to tell us! Let’s go look!” He immediately stormed off, rushing down the stairs and into the lab. Maddie followed him at a more sedate pace, trying to decide on a punishment for Danny. No matter the reason, he __had__ broken an important rule. The lab was dangerous, especially without supervision.

Landing at the bottom step, however, her attention was instantly drawn towards the back wall of the lab. The previously non-functional Ghost Portal had apparently activated while they had been away, the metal arch of its frame containing a swirling green mass. Jack had run over and stood by its side, checking over the machinery connected to it.

Pulling her eyes off of the Portal, Maddie glanced around to lab, but couldn’t see Danny anywhere. She turned back to her husband. “Jack, did you see Danny in the lab when you came down?”

He looked up from the computer he had been checking, frowning. “No. Think he might have gone upstairs again?”

“Probably. I’ll go check, he shouldn’t have been down here in the lab without us,” she agreed, reluctantly turning around again. The Portal was fascinating, but her family was more important. Danny could have gotten himself hurt, and if he had been down in the lab, he might know what caused the Portal to turn on.

Making her way back into the living room and then up the stairs, Maddie stopped in front of the door to Danny’s room and rapped her knuckles against it. No answer. She knocked again before calling out to him. “Danny? Can I come in sweetie, we need to talk.”

Still no answer. Strange, normally Danny would have called back already. Teenager or not, he was well-behaved.

Frowning, she grabbed the handle of his door, but didn’t open it yet. “Danny, I’m coming in, okay?”

Hearing no protests (or sounds of any kind), she pushed down the handle and opened the door. The room was a mess like usual, but there were no signs of Danny. There were no open books or homework that he was working on, and both the TV and the computer were turned off.

Walking into the room, Maddie spotted his phone lying on his desk. So he hadn’t left the house either.

As she made her way back over to the stairs she tried to think of where Danny could have gone. She could see that the door of the bathroom was open and the light was off, so he wasn’t in there. Not in his own room, not in the lab, not in the living room or the kitchen. He had no reason to go into Jazz’s room, and he knew not to try either. So that left the backyard, and the Ops Center.

She whirled around suddenly, moving towards the ladder into the Ops Center and swiftly climbing it. If he was hiding in the Ops Center, he was in big trouble. He already broke the rule that he wasn’t allowed in the lab without supervision, but the same applied to the Ops Center.

However, as she opened the hatch and pulled herself through the opening, she could already tell that Danny wasn’t there. Walking over to the windows, she looked down into the yard of their house, but didn’t see him there either.

She made her way back to the lab, finding Jack still fiddling with the Portal.

“Jack honey, I can’t find Danny anywhere. Are you sure that he’s not in the lab?”

Jack turned away from the massive machine to look at Maddie, an uncertain look on his face. “Yeah, I would have noticed. I don’t think anything in the lab has been moved Mads, are you sure that he was down here? Maybe he’s just gone out with friends and forgot to tell us.”

“No, that couldn’t have been it. Danny doesn’t leave the house without his phone, and I found it upstairs on his desk. Besides, __someone__ must have gone into the lab, and Danny was the only one home. Who else could it have been?”

Jack glanced back at the Portal before his eyes widened in shock. “A ghost! A ghost must have come through the Portal and opened the door!”

Maddie rolled her eyes in fond exasperation. “Jack, a ghost wouldn’t need to open the door. It could have just gone through it, remember? Unless...” she trailed off, but Jack caught on.

“Unless it kidnapped Danny! That filthy piece of ectoplasm took our son!” he yelled, scrambling over to a nearby table to sort through their experimental weaponry. “I’ll teach it not to touch our kids! I’ll tear it apart molecule by molecule!”

* * *

 

When Jazz finally came home from her trip to library, she was greeted by a surprising amount of yelling. She was used to the house being noisy and chaotic (part of the ‘charm’ of growing up in as a Fenton) but it seemed different today. While she had, admittedly, forced her parents out of the house earlier that day in the hopes that they would cheer up a little, she didn’t expect them to bounce back to their regular loud selves this quickly. Biting her lower lip, she listened more carefully to the yelling, unable to tell what was going on but catching on to the angry tones.

Hesitantly making her way over to the yelling, she determined that her parents were in the lab. Idling at the top of the stairs for a moment, she decided to investigate more closely.

The lab she entered was a thousand times more chaotic than it normally was. There were tools and partially assembled inventions scattered everywhere, limited not only to the tables and shelves but now also spread all over the floor and even the walls. She quickly located her parents (thank goodness for their bright jumpsuits) standing near one of the tables, with her dad holding a large metal gun-like machine. They sounded agitated, but didn’t seem to be fighting with each other as she had originally thought.

Carefully picking her way through the mess, she approached her parents and cleared her throat. “What’s going on here? What happened?”

Her mom turned around and pulled down the hood of her jumpsuit, and Jazz was startled to see that her eyes were red as if she had been crying. “Oh Jazz… Something awful happened.”

Her dad cut in, anger lacing his voice. “Some no-good piece of putrid ectoplasm kidnapped your brother! The Portal turned on while we were out of the house, and Danny is nowhere to be found, so clearly some evil ghost came through and took your brother. But don’t worry, we’re gonna get him back!”

“Are you insane?!” Jazz yelled, startling her parents. “As if this stupid ghost obsession of yours isn’t unbelievable enough, now you’re telling me that a ghost came into our house and __kidnapped__ Danny?! What makes you so sure that he’s not just hanging out somewhere with Sam and Tucker? Did you even try calling them to ask if they’ve seen him?”

Seeing her parents falter, Jazz continued. “So you didn’t, huh? Let’s start with calling those two and asking when they’ve last seen him, and _t_ _ _hen__ we’ll consider the possibility that something happened to Danny.”

She stormed back up the stairs, and heard her parents put down their stuff and follow her. Grabbing the phone in the kitchen, she dialed Tucker’s house phone and listened to it ring, forcing herself to calm down.

“Hello, Foley household, this is Angela speaking.” Jazz glanced at her parents, who had finally reached the top of the stairs, before answering. “Hey Mrs. Foley, this is Jazz. Is Danny over at your place?”

“No, I don’t think so. Hang on, I’ll go check for you.” Quiet footsteps could be heard, followed by a conversation too quiet to hear through the phone. “No, and Tucker hasn’t heard from him in a couple of hours either. Maybe he’s with Sam?”

“Yeah, maybe. I’ll try them next. Thanks Mrs. Foley,” she sighed.

“It’s no problem, sorry I couldn’t help more.”

Jazz ended the call and looked at her parents, who had settled down around the kitchen table during the call. “Do either of you know the phone number of the Mansons?”

Seeing her mom nod, she handed over the phone and watched her call Sam’s family. She couldn’t really follow the conversation, but the grim expression on her mom’s face told her enough, even before the call ended.

“Sam hasn’t heard anything from Danny for hours either, and she doesn’t know anywhere else he could have gone to,” Maddie confirmed as she put the phone down on the table.

“Okay, so he’s not with his friends, and he’s not inside the house. So now we go to the lab to catch this ghost!” Jack exclaimed as he pushed himself up, moments away from storming back downstairs. Jazz grabbed his arm and stopped him, a furious expression on her face.

“No! Now we call the police and tell them that Danny is gone! Even __if__ a ghost is responsible, which I highly doubt, they still need to know that he’s missing!” Jazz yelled, and clawed her fingers into her dad’s arm. He made a dubious face at her, but nodded his consent and sat back down. “Good. Mom, can you call the police?”

 

The police were, in fact, called. They came over and interviewed Jazz and her parents, but didn’t investigate much and barely looked around. They patiently listened to Jack and Maddie as they explained that their Ghost Portal turned on while they weren’t home, and that a ghost must have come through it and that it must have taken Danny with it into the Ghost Zone. Knowing the reputation of the Fentons, they didn’t try denying the possibility, and instead turned to Jazz as the most mature person available.

They speculated that Danny had simply run away from home, arguing that a lot of kids ran away from home at some point, even teenagers. The crazy Fenton household held plenty of reasons that could have inspired a kid to leave, and while Jazz agreed, she also didn’t think that Danny was the type to run away from his family like that. The police shrugged her off, however, as she was only sixteen, and her parents were nuts.

They told the Fentons that they would do their best to find Danny, but most runaways returned home within hours or, at most, a few days. The Fentons were told to call the police again if Danny still hadn’t shown up a week later, and then they were gone, leaving behind the stunned and frustrated family.

Jazz couldn’t believe that the police would just shrug off the possibility that Danny had been kidnapped, and the Fenton parents couldn’t believe that the police didn’t even consider that ghosts might have been involved. They returned to the lab and doubled their efforts, trying to develop weaponry to fight ghosts and equipment to traverse the Ghost Zone so they could go looking for Danny. Jazz focused on researching the psychology behind runaways, and later started looking into ways to determine if someone was kidnapped.

* * *

Sam stared anxiously at the phone lying on her desk. Since Mrs. Fenton had called and asked if she knew where Danny was, she couldn’t stop worrying about him. According to his mom, Danny had disappeared from the house and hadn’t taken his phone with him, and he wasn’t with Tucker either. Sighing heavily, she decided that she had had enough of lying around and waiting for news, and she grabbed her phone to call Tucker.

They quickly agreed to meet at Tucker’s house, and Sam made her way over in record time. Tucker greeted her at the door, and together they set off towards Danny’s house.

The bright FentonWorks sign greets them from several streets away, but it does nothing to stop the dread that they feel from forming. They ring the bell, even though they would normally just walk in without warning, and wait until the door is finally opened by Jazz, who makes a confused face in their direction.

“Sam? Tucker? What are you guys doing here?” she questions as she beckons them inside.

“We haven’t heard anything from Danny in hours, and between your phone call to Tucker and your mom’s phone call with me, we got really worried. Is he okay?” Sam asks, as Tucker nods to confirm her story.

Jazz hesitates and glances towards the kitchen, before leading the teens over to the couch and sitting down, Sam and Tucker following her example.

“We- We don’t know if he’s okay. All of us were out today, and when we came home Danny was missing. After we called you two to ask if you knew where he was, we called the police, but they were… less than helpful.”

Seeing that the other two were speechless, she continued. “The police think that Danny ran away, that this whole crazy ghost-hunting parents thing got too much for him, and they think he’ll be back in a few days at most.”

“Yeah, no way. Danny isn’t the running away type, and he loves his parents even if they’re a little nuts,” Tucker declared, and Sam nodded but didn’t add anything.

“That’s what I thought too. I looked up some literature about the psychology of runaways,” Sam rolled her eyes and muttered “of course you did” under her breath, “but Danny doesn’t fit the profile at all. And there’s nothing that suggests he ran away either, none of clothes or possessions are missing.”

“And what do your parents think of all this?” Tucker urged.

“They think a ghost is responsible, of course.” Jazz rolled her eyes. “Apparently the Portal turned on while we were away, and they think a ghost came through and that it kidnapped Danny and took him into the Portal.”

“Wait, the Portal turned on and Danny goes missing at the same time? That’s pretty suspicious, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I agree with Sam. Even if I’m not sure that ghosts exist, that’s too much of a coincidence. Whatever happened to Danny, I think the Portal was involved.”

Jazz nodded. “I thought so too. I mean, I don’t believe in ghosts, and Danny isn’t allowed in the lab while our parents aren’t there to supervise, but I think he was there when the Portal turned on. I’m not sure what happened though, or what the Portal even does, since I highly doubt that it leads into an alternate dimension filled with ghosts like my parents think.”

“So, the Portal turned on and now Danny is missing,” Tucker summarized, and the two girls nodded in confirmation.

“I mean, even if I think ghosts are pretty cool, this is super messed up. Your parents build a crazy science-defying Portal into another dimension, but they don’t know anything about it, do they?” Seeing Jazz shake her head, Sam continued. “So your parents are clever enough to figure out this ridiculous machine, but didn’t take any safety precautions to make sure no one got pulled in? And they didn’t build anything to allow them to go in there either, did they? So if Danny is __wherever__ this Portal leads, we have no way of checking and no way of getting to him.”

“Basically, Danny went missing because of this crazy obsession with ghosts that our parents have, and there’s nothing we can do to help.”

“Man Jazz, I can’t even describe how fucked up that is.”

* * *

 

Unfortunately, the mysterious disappearance of Danny Fenton was only the start of trouble for Amity Park. A month after he was reported missing, disaster struck once more as people reported being attacked by strange floating creatures. The two creatures, who resembled green octopuses despite having only four tentacles each, attacked a neighborhood near FentonWorks and had caused several injuries before they had been scared off.

Several more bizarre green animals started attacking in the weeks afterwards, and almost two months after the first activation of the Fenton Ghost Portal, the first true ghost was spotted. A floating blue man had attacked at the docks, causing several minor injuries before he got distracted by a nearby pile of boxes, giving his victims a chance to get away.

The city, growing increasingly desperate, turned to the Fentons and asked them if these creatures were ghosts. The Fentons confirmed, and were soon hired by the city to fight off these dangerous creatures. They had great success thanks to the various weapons and trackers that they had developed in the time since the Portal first activated, even if they had intended them for a slightly different purpose.

However, as the Fentons succeeded in fighting off these ghosts, more and more specters came in their stead, and stronger as well. They had to put more and more time into developing better weaponry, as these stronger ghosts also proved to be much more dangerous than previous enemies.

The Fentons struggled their way through various fights, conquering enemies like a technology-controlling ghost, a wish-granting ghost, and even a musician ghost that had hypnotized almost every teen in the city, including their own daughter, but they continued to spend every free moment they got developing tools in the hopes of tracking down their wayward son in the Ghost Zone. Every sentient ghost they encountered was questioned if they had seen a teen with black hair and blue eyes in the Ghost Zone, but no one remembered seeing him.

Eventually it escalated far beyond what the Fentons were used to dealing with, as a group of ghosts went nuts on a ghost-powered crime spree, robbing stores and banks and stealing anything of value. As more and more ghosts joined the group, the stolen possessions were eventually tracked down to a traveling circus by the name of Circus Gothica, and the ringmaster was revealed to possess an ancient relic which allowed him to control ghosts.

The ringmaster was arrested, the stolen possessions were returned, and the ghosts were freed (the relic had shattered during the fight). Unfortunately, the peace still didn’t return to Amity Park, as ghost activity remained at an all-time high, and the only ghost hunters in Amity Park were forced to abandon their search of the Ghost Zone to focus exclusively on ghost hunting. They still asked every ghost about their son, but never got the answers they desired.

Many months later, Amity was abuzz with rumors about a new ghost, seen only by the teens of Amity Park. The adults of Amity Park had all been kidnapped by group of ghosts and brought to a flying pirate ship, including the only experienced ghost hunters, the Fentons. While the only teens with a passing knowledge of ghost weaponry had been desperately trying to come up with a plan, a new ghost had shown up and started fighting the kidnapping ghosts.

The fight took place high in the sky and not much of it was seen, but the new ghost was seen carrying all the kidnapped adults to safety after the ship crashed. He was quick to flee, however, when he noticed people approaching him, and so they only knew that he appeared to be a teenager, with white hair and wearing mostly black.

The ghost was seen again during the ghost invasion, when the skeleton army of Pariah Dark attacked Amity Park. He was spotted numerous times, seen conversing with other ghosts, and appeared to be assembling some sort of army. The invasion ended soon after, and ghosts around the city could be heard celebrating the victory of ‘Phantom’ and his army against Pariah Dark. The name is quickly connected to the previously seen teen ghost, and many of Amity’s people were more than happy to cheer the mysterious ghost on, as he had apparently saved them again.

The Fentons first encounter Phantom while they were fighting Technus, who had taken over the Fenton RV and was easily outmatching them. Phantom quickly took the fight away from the city, and the Fentons lose track of both ghosts, although when they return home after patrolling the city, they find the RV waiting for them at their house, almost entirely undamaged.

While they didn’t get a good look at Phantom, his general appearance is rather... suspect. A teenage ghost, appearing roughly the same age as their missing son, with an almost identical hair style, and wearing a jumpsuit extremely similar to the ones the Fentons prefer, was cause of much concern from the Fenton parents.

They sit down in the lab to discuss their findings in private, and quickly agree that it’s quite likely that Phantom is Danny’s ghost. They quietly wonder if he remembers anything from his life, if he recognizes them as his parents, if he could tell them what happened when he had disappeared, how he died. They spend the next several hours in the lab trying to deal with the possibility that Danny might be dead.

Phantom is spotted a few times more, but only during ghost fights and he always keeps his distance from humans. The Fentons always try to be there, hoping to get a good look at Phantom to confirm his identity, but Phantom appears and disappears almost instantly, somehow hiding from their radars outside of the fights.

Jack and Maddie finally see an opportunity during a fight between Phantom and a sky blue ghost dragon. Knowing that he always tries to take fights to quiet areas without people, they manage to find him again before the fight finishes. He zips around the dragon, avoiding the snapping jaws and clawing hands, and grabs the amulet it wears. He swiftly removes it, and to the amazement of the Fentons, the dragon shrinks down into a humanoid ghost, which Phantom promptly shoves through a natural portal that conveniently opened right next to him.

Seeing that he had finished the fight, and knowing that he was about to disappear, they call out to him. Phantom hesitates, but doesn’t leave, lowering himself so he’s closer to the Fentons. They watch him closely, and while he doesn’t appear to recognize them, they can clearly tell that he’s Danny, despite the white hair and the glowing green eyes.

“Uh, hey? What did you guys want?” he asks, and Maddie has to repress a shiver as the voice was undeniably Danny’s, despite the echo that every ghost seemed to have. Seeing his wife struggle, Jack took control of the conversation.

“Phantom, right?” Seeing the ghost nod, he continued on. “We want to make a deal. A truce of sorts, if you will.”

“What kind of deal?”

Glancing at Jack, Maddie took back over. “As long as you keep behaving as you do now, fighting off other ghosts and not causing any trouble, we’ll let you have free reign in Amity Park. And if you ever get in trouble, you can come to us and we’ll do our best to help you.”

Phantom frowns, clearly thinking it through, before he nods sharply. “That sounds pretty good. You’ve got a deal.”

Jack grins boyishly and stuck out his hand towards the ghost. The boy hesitates for a moment before shaking the offered hand, and then repeats the action with Maddie.

“Well, if that was all, I really have to, y’know,” he makes a vague movement with his hands, “go. I have ghostly business to take care off and stuff.”

The Fentons nod, and watch as Phantom raises himself up in the air again, before he zips off, away from the city. Tracking him on their radar, they saw him approach another ghost, before stopping, and then both disappear like they had never been there in the first place.

Burdened by the confirmation that Phantom was Danny, as they had thought but had hoped against, the Fentons return home, where they lock themselves up in the lab to mourn the death of their son. Several hours later, as the truth had settled and many tears had been shed, Jack and Maddie discuss what they should do next.

Jack, while saddened that his son had died and became a ghost, was proud that his son had chosen to be a ghost hunter after all, especially as he went against his ghostly nature and was benevolent rather than malevolent as ghosts tended to be. Maddie was horrified that their son had been killed by one of their inventions, even if indirectly. They vowed to find out which ghost had come out of the Portal and attacked Danny, as it was clear to them that this unknown ghost must have brought him into the Ghost Zone and either left him to die, or outright killed him. They also decided to hide the truth from Jazz, Sam, and Tucker, so that the kids could hold on to the slightest hope that Danny might still be alive.

Unfortunately, this proved more difficult than anticipated, and Jazz connected the dots within a week. Between Phantom’s general appearance, the fact that her parents agreed to a truce with him almost immediately, and their overall gloomy mood, it was clear that they had determined that Phantom was Danny. She waited for almost a month, hoping that they would tell her on their own, but eventually confronted them.

Her parents admitted that they spoke to Phantom, and that it was undeniable that he was Danny when they saw him up close, and especially when they heard him talk. They also tell her that Danny didn’t recognize them at all, and Jazz agrees with their suspicions that if he didn’t recognize his parents, he likely wouldn’t know his sister or his friends either. Jazz agreed not to tell Sam and Tucker until the three of them figure out a way to break the news to them nicely.

* * *

 School was hard for Sam and Tucker, the disappearance of their best friend still weighing heavily on their minds. The increased gossiping and idolizing of Phantom didn’t help much either, as some people crossed the border into obsession, a clear example being Paulina who had started building a shrine dedicated to Phantom in her locker.

Walking past said locker, Sam pointed and made a disgusted face, Tucker chuckling in response. His laughter was cut short however as he suddenly slipped and fell. He groaned as Sam helped him back up, and glanced down to find that he had slipped on a photo.

Picking it up, he found that it was a surprisingly clear photo of Phantom, which had likely fallen out of Paulina’s locker. He furrowed his brow as he looked at it, struck with a terrible sense of foreboding as he suddenly realized that he recognized that face. Sam, seeing his distress, came over and pulled the photo out of his hand without looking at it.

“What’s wrong Tucker? Really unflattering picture of Paulina?” she joked, trying to lighten the mood but failing. He mutely shook his head and pointed at the picture. Taking the hint, Sam flipped it over and scrutinized it.

At first glance it appeared to be a pretty normal picture of Phantom, although it was quite sharp which was rare for photos of the elusive ghost. She was about to comment that she didn’t understand why it had freaked out Tucker so much, and then she saw what he had seen. The determined expression with his brow furrowed and eyes focused on something out of frame was startlingly familiar, and she recalled when she had last seen that exact same expression, worn by her other best friend as he was building an extremely detailed model rocket. If she imagined the boy on the photo with black hair instead of white, and blue eyes instead of green, he looked exactly like Danny.

Looking back at Tucker with a pained expression, she quickly decided that they had to talk to the Fentons. Grabbing Tucker by the arm and dragging him along with her, she swiftly excited the school and started walking towards FentonWorks, ignoring Tucker’s protests.

She stormed inside without knocking, startling the two adults who sat on the couch.

“Sam? Tucker? Why aren’t you in school? Was there an attack?” Maddie asked, concern lacing her voice as she took in their dark expressions.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Sam demanded, ignoring the questions asked. Maddie looked back at her husband, before hesitantly answering. “Tell you what, Sam?”

“Mrs. Fenton, with all due respect, we’re not stupid. You’ve had a truce with Phantom for weeks. When were you going to tell us that you figured out that he’s Danny?” Tucker growled. Both Fentons flinched.

“We… weren’t sure how to tell you. We’ve suspected for a while but didn’t have any proof until we talked to him about the truce.”

“So you’ve known for almost two months that our best friend was dead and you didn’t even tell us! Don’t you know that we care about him too!”

“Sam, you don’t understand. Phantom is Danny’s ghost, yes, but he’s not Danny. He...” she paused, trying to figure out the best way to word what she wanted to say. “He doesn’t know us. Phantom didn’t recognize either of us, and Jazz agrees that he probably won’t remember you two either.”

“And that made it okay to hide this from us?!”

“No, it didn’t. We’re sorry for keeping this from you two, but it’s been hard for us too,” Jack stepped in, attempting to soothe the irate teenagers.

“You should have told us anyway! You don’t even know for sure that he can’t remember us!” Sam spat as she whirled around and walked towards the front door.

“Sam, wait! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to find him and I’m going to talk to him. I refuse to believe that Danny would have forgotten us.” She fixed the Fentons with a heated glare and walked out, slamming the door shut behind her.

Tucker sighed and shook his head before giving the Fentons a furious glare of his own. “This is still super messed up, just so you know.”

Maddie and Jack watched mutely as Tucker left the house as well.

 

Sam spends most of her time during the next two weeks outside, looking for ghost fights in the hopes of spotting Phantom. While in the past he only showed up to fight the biggest threats, the positive reception by Amity’s citizens seemed to inspire him to show up more often, as he started picking off most ghosts that threatened the city.

While he could be spotted several times a day, Phantom continued to shy away from the people of the city. He gladly waved and smiled at onlookers, but never came close unless he had to, and never stopped to interact with them.

Driven by desperation, Sam started to chase after Phantom not only after fights, but during them as well, often coming far closer to the battling ghosts than safe. It became increasingly clear that while Phantom always ignored people, he seemed to actively avoid interacting with Sam.

It all came to a head when she got herself injured during one of Phantom’s ghost fights. She was extremely close to the fight, watching Phantom battle a robotic ghost whose name she didn’t know. The ghost fired several missiles at Phantom, who skillfully dodged them, leaving them to explode against the surrounding buildings. One of the rockets, however, was heading straight for Sam, and she froze as she watched it speed towards her. She was shoved to the ground moments before it hit, the rocket passing through Phantom, who was floating where she had been a split-second before. He glanced at her, too quickly for her to read his emotions, before racing back up to face the ghost he had been fighting. The fight was over moments later, the robotic ghost frozen solid and captured in a borrowed Fenton Thermos, and Phantom sped off without even a glance towards her.

As Sam slowly stood back up, Tucker shoved his way through the rapidly dispersing crowd. “Sam! What are you doing?!”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she spat at him, expecting him to answer with equal anger. He surprised her, however, by grabbing her and pulling her closer to him, wrapping his arms around her in a tight hug. Sam froze, startled momentarily, before melting against him.

“Sam, you can’t keep doing this.”

“Tucker, you don’t understand.” She felt him stiffen, and he pulled away from her suddenly.

“I don’t understand?!” he snarled. “You don’t understand! You keep endangering yourself running after him! Sam, I can’t do this, okay? I’ve already lost one of my best friends, I don’t want to lose you too.” He closed his eyes, wrapping his arms around himself.

“Oh Tucker, I didn’t think of it like that,” she apologized, pulling him against herself. “It’s just- The Fentons were wrong. Danny recognizes us, or me at least. He just… pretends not to, for some reason.”

“You’re kidding.” Seeing her serious expression, he continued. “You’re not. How do you know?”

“It’s a few things. He obviously shies away from people because he doesn’t want to risk anyone recognizing him, but he straight-up avoids the Fentons and us if possible. When he can’t avoid us, he still tries not to look at us. And I __know__ I’ve seen him with a pained expression on his face when he thought we couldn’t see it.”

“Damn Sam, that’s… that’s pretty convincing. Why didn’t you tell me and the Fentons about this?”

She pulled away from him and shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I guess I just hoped that Danny would stop being such an ass and admit that he remembers us.” Tucker chuckled a little.

“Well, he was always the clueless one, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Let’s go to the Fentons and get a plan together.”

 

Sam soon told the Fentons about her observations, and they agreed with her and Tucker that it seemed rather suspect. All four agreed to keep an eye out during future encounters with Phantom, and it soon became clear that she was right. Phantom is avoiding them far more extremely than anyone else in the town, and his nervous behavior during interactions with Maddie and Jack is clearly not just because they’re ghost hunters, but because he’s afraid that he’ll slip up and that they’ll figure out that he remembers them.

They try to figure out why Danny would be afraid of telling them who he was, but every possible answer just makes them feel worse.

Eventually a plan is made, and they decide to attempt to corner Danny somewhere private so the six of them can talk.

* * *

 Danny swoops down in front of the ghost he was chasing through the park, his target some kind of wolf ghost no smarter than a regular wolf, and manages to catch it in his Fenton Thermos before it has a chance to get away. He slows his frantic flight to catch his breath, stopping to hover not far above the ground in a quiet clearing. He hoped for a moment of respite, but his eye was soon drawn to two approaching figures in very recognizable jumpsuits – his parents.

He groans inwardly, but gives them a polite nod as they enter the clearing. They’ve been following him a lot lately, and he’d been seeing Sam and Tucker and even Jazz more often too. He wondered if they had finally figured out who he was, but he wasn’t about to find out. He would rather live in uncertainty for the rest of his existence than see their disappointed expressions after they discover the truth.

He had started backing up the moment he saw them, but suddenly halts and whirls around when he hears rustling coming from behind him. Pushing her way through the bushes was Jazz, with a determined expression on her face. She was soon followed by Sam and Tucker, who left the bushes on either side of him, all wearing similarly pained but adamant expressions.

Turning around, he saw that they had surrounded him. He briefly considers just flying away, or maybe sinking into the ground using his intangibility, but he knew that he couldn’t avoid this confrontation forever. The five humans that he loved so dearly all stopped, and a heavy silence hung over them.

“Danny,” a quiet voice murmurs, and Danny turns towards the origin to find his mother with tears in her eyes. He hesitates, wanting to deny it, to keep up the pretense, but the expressions on their faces hurt him more than anything he has ever felt. Finally he nods, wordlessly.

Almost instantly he is surrounded by warm bodies, as his loved ones rush towards him and gather him in an enormous group hug. They’re all talking to him simultaneously, comforting him and soothing him, and he struggles to make out any of their words. He lets their warmth flood over him before he can finally pick out words, hearing the people around his assure him that they love him even though he’s a ghost, and suddenly it all becomes too much, too overwhelming.

He feels tears gather in the corners of his eyes and tries to push away his scrambled emotions, but the metaphorical dam breaks and he blurts out, “I’m not a ghost.”

He can feel everyone around him stiffen, and they pull away from him, releasing him from his loving prison. Their expressions vary, but disbelief is present on every face.

“You don’t have to deny the truth sweetie, it’s okay,” Maddie soothes, but Danny shakes his head as more tears form, and he starts crying.

“No, you don’t- you don’t understand,” he manages to utter in-between sobs, “I’m not- I’m not actually a ghost.”

He halts, trying to catch his breath and uselessly wiping away some of his tears with a gloved hand. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, holding it for a moment before releasing his hold on the ghostly energy that forms Phantom.

A bright ring of light forms around his waist and splits apart, both halos slowly sweeping over his body. They took away the black jumpsuit and left behind normal clothes, a pair of jeans and a simple t-shirt. As the bottom ring swept over his feet, his white boots were replaced by red sneakers, and the top ring finishes its route as well, leaving behind a black mop of hair. When Danny opens his eyes again, the glowing green had been replaced by the crystalline blue it had once been.

Everyone stills, breaths catching in their throats as they looked at Danny, at __their__ Danny, who looked just like he always had. Even if Phantom had looked almost exactly like Danny, seeing him change to exactly how he had looked before he had died made it hit so much harder. It’s like they had never truly grasped that Phantom was Danny until now.

Danny shifts, awkward as everyone’s attention was still focused on him, and he brought a hand up to rub his neck. He smiles at them, but his discomfort was clear. “See? Not really a ghost.”

Maddie and Jack exchange a few looks, obviously holding a silent conversation, before Maddie steps forward. “Danny, sweetie, there are a number of ghosts who can… appear like they’re living human beings. They don’t stop being ghosts just because they can look like- like they’re alive.”

“No, but- Ugh, I suck at explaining this.” He scrunches his face in thought, trying to figure out a better way of wording it but failing. “I know that some ghosts can change to look like they’re alive, but that’s not what this is, okay? Trust me, I’ve spend a lot of time in the Ghost Zone, talked with a lot of ghosts and stuff. They can just… alter their appearance, but it’s only their outside. They’re still just as cold as they usually are, and they’re still made entirely out of ectoplasm, and they don’t need to eat or sleep or anything. I’m not like that. I still get hungry, and tired, and thirsty, and when I hurt myself in this form I bleed red.” Seeing the doubtful expressions on the faces of his loved ones, he tries a different route.

“Look, a ghost reverts back to their normal form when they’re knocked out, right?” Seeing his parents nod, he continues. “When I pass out, or when I fall asleep, I revert back to this form. My human form is my default, and I can only change into Phantom if I have enough energy to maintain it. The other ghosts call me a halfa, a half ghost, half human hybrid. I swear I’m not making this up.”

He was suddenly swallowed up by an enormous body as his dad drew him in a giant hug. “It’s okay Danny-boy, we’ll figure this out together.” Releasing him again, he ruffles Danny’s hair and steps back, a goofy smile on his face.

“So you… you don’t care?” Seeing everyone nod their agreements, he feels tears welling up again. “I just- So many ghosts hate me because I’m not actually a ghost, y’know? To them I’m just some kind of unnatural abomination, a- a __freak__ that nobody could love.” He closes his eyes as tears start rolling down his cheeks, folding his arms across his chest and curling into himself.

The moment was soon broken by a swift punch to the upper arm, Sam glaring at him as several others chastise her. “You’re an idiot, Danny.”

Seizing the opportunity, Tucker cut in. “We’ve missed you, man, and we love you no matter what.”

Jazz steps forward as well, nodding at her parents to encourage them to speak too. “Home isn’t home without you, little brother.”

Clamping a big hand around Danny’s shoulder, Jack spoke his own words of love. “Danny, we love you whether you’re a ghost, a boy, or something in-between.”

“Danny, please come home,” Maddie begs.

Caught looking between everyone, Danny sobs and pulls everyone towards him in another group hug. “Yes- yes, I’ll come home. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I’ve missed you all so much, so unbelievably much.”

And so, more than a year after he had first gone missing, young Danny Fenton finally returned home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh I've kind of fallen in love with this AU as I worked on it, so I continued it for day 5 - Harvest. If people are interested I might write more for it, especially since I originally intended to add more to this one (I had a whole extra bit planned from Danny's perspective, which includes the explanation for his sudden (dis)appearances).


	3. Necromancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny didn't survive the accident, and his ghost never stumbled out of the Portal either, but Sam is dedicated and resourceful, and nothing can keep her away from her best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Major character death (mentioned, not described), graphic descriptions of injuries, swearing
> 
> Seriously, the entire fic is about the death of a major character. If I was uploading these as separate fics instead of chapters, I would have tagged this with the Major Character Death warning. It's dark and angsty and there's no resolution, so uh, be warned and stuff.

Tucker doesn't fight much with Sam anymore, these days. Every time he gets riled up, every time he finds himself getting ready to argue, he thinks back to the one time they really fought. They've always argued, of course, and without Danny their arguments kept coming and coming, but they both knew that their arguments were rarely to convince the other, and meaningless as their fights were, they burned out as quickly as they came.

But the one time it didn't, the one time their fight truly mattered, was the one time Tucker will forever regret. Because he watched Sam storm off, and in his anger, he never stopped to remember what they were arguing about in the first place.

It wasn't until far too late that he realized, and he remembered, and he regretted that he had been too caught up in their fight to stop her, and now every fight seems, well, unreasonable. What's the point in fighting if he couldn't even stop her from making that huge mistake?

He thinks about that awful fight a lot. It haunts him, just like the mistake that led to it. It’s burned into his brain, and he can recall it without fail, every detail as sharp as it had been when he was there.

  


It was a fairly normal day, or about as normal as days got after the Accident. Sam and Tucker were hanging out in the park together, quiet and alone, steadfastly ignoring the empty spot where their best friend should have been. They had quickly learned to shy away from conversations, the rhythm off without input from Danny. It would only lead to fights anyway, which only served to make them feel worse.

Suddenly Sam sat up, staring wide-eyed at the book she had been reading. “I’ve got it.”

“Got what?” Tucker asked as he pushed himself up as well.

“I know how we can get Danny back.”

“Sam,” he said as he tried to gauge her emotional state, but she kept her eyes on the book, making it hard for him to read her expression. “Sam, he’s gone. You heard his parents, if he became a ghost we would have known by now.”

She remained silent and unmoving. He sighed deeply. “Sam, I miss him too, but we can’t change what happened.”

Suddenly she turned, scowling at him. “We can’t change what happened, no, but he’s not completely gone. We can get him back, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

“That’s crazy! Sam, he’s _dead_. You _saw_ his body after the Accident, we’ve been to his funeral. They fucking _buried_ him. He’s _gone_ Sam, there’s nothing to bring back!”

She scrambled to her feet, face growing red in anger and tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “You’re wrong! I can bring him back, and he’ll be fine! You- you just don’t care about him anymore! You’re a selfish asshole who only cares about himself!”

“What?!” he yelled, standing up as well. “ _I’m_ a selfish asshole? You want to try some kind of crazy goth ritual to bring him back against his own will! Sam, if Danny wanted to stay, he would have become a ghost. You can’t do this!”

“Oh yeah?” she growled, “we’ll see about that!”

And then she was gone, stomping off into the brushes, and Tucker was left in the clearing all alone.

  


Tucker glances at the boy that had once been his best friend as the boy stares back, eyes dull and emotionless and perhaps worst of all, void of recognition. He looks as he always did, wearing his usual outfit of blue jeans, a white t-shirt with red trim, and red sneakers. Tucker had wondered, at first, how Sam had gotten her hands on multiple copies of Danny’s clothing, but he soon found out that she was rich. The discovery would have thrilled him if it wasn’t for the terrible situation that she had put them in.

While his clothing looked as it always did, the same couldn’t be said for the boy himself. His black hair was limp and lifeless, looking brittle without the shine that it had always had. His sky-blue eyes were half-lidded, and had lost their sparkle. And perhaps worst of all were the vicious injuries that cover his arms, angry and a nasty mix of red and black, worst at the palm of his left hand but clearly visible all over. They even peek out of his collar, standing out against the pale white of his skin.

The skin of his left hand was burned away completely, the only white the gleaming bone that peeked out. From there the injuries sprawled out, branching all over his body in a mockery of lightning. They remained red and angry, always looking as fresh as they did right after the Accident, but they had stopped bleeding a long time ago. At first, Tucker had wondered why they still looked so fresh, but had quickly come to the conclusion that it was a side-effect from whatever Sam had done to preserve Danny.

There was no evidence of what, exactly, she had done. He looks, and feels, like a corpse, even if he isn’t stiff or decaying as one. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe, or eat or drink. He is cold to the touch, and doesn’t respond to anything. He simply sits in the chair where Sam had put him, and doesn’t seem to register anything happening around him.

He had been, at some point, Danny, but he definitely wasn’t anymore. This was little more than a corpse, somehow preserved via arcane magics. Even if Sam continues to parade him around (always in private, the two of them the only people there, at least so far) and acts like this is Danny, Tucker couldn’t bear to think of him that way.

This mockery of life isn’t Danny. The little life that it carries had been forcefully taken from a boy who had passed the opportunity to become a ghost, and so they were left with little more than a shade of what had been.

If Tucker has to refer to the shade, he calls it Phantom. He thought that Danny would have appreciated it, a play on his last name, since the boy had always enjoyed puns.

Phantom doesn’t enjoy anything.

Phantom isn’t Danny. If only Sam could see that.

  


He still remembered the first time she had shown up with Phantom. It had quickly joined the Accident and the Fight as a memory to haunt him forever.

Sam had texted him, asking him to meet her in the park. He had agreed, hoping to put their fight behind them. He had already lost Danny, he didn’t want to lose Sam too, no matter how serious the fight had been.

And so he found himself waiting in the clearing that they had used many times before, distracting himself with his PDA. Hearing a rustling in the bushes, he eagerly looked up, and saw Sam approach him.

She wasn’t alone.

Following closely behind her was- was _Danny_. His eyes were turned downward, making it impossible to read his face as his black hair covered it, but the injuries were easily recognizable.

Sam had a hand clamped around his right wrist, and seemed to be dragging him with her.

Tucker was seconds away from jumping up and hugging his best friend, when he remembered his last conversation with Sam, and ice-cold dread filled him.

He still stood up, but much more slowly, and licked his lips before asking, “Danny?”

The boy stood unmoving, and when Sam let go of his wrist his arm fell to his side. He didn’t react in any way to show that he had heard Tucker.

As Tucker stood there staring at the boy, Sam grabbed Danny and carefully shoved him to the ground, guiding his limbs into a sitting position. Danny still didn’t acknowledge anything that was happening around him.

When both Danny and Sam were seated on the soft grass, Sam looked at Tucker expectantly. He hesitated, but then sat down, further from the two of them than he normally would. Sam didn’t comment.

She then promptly started asking him about _school_ , of all things. As the conversation continued, she even started asking Danny for input, but he remained quiet. With slow-building horror, Tucker realized that Sam was ignoring the oddity to pretend that- that nothing had happened. When he stopped playing his role in the conversation, Sam simply started filling in for him, just as she had done for Danny.

He briefly wondered what Jazz would do if she had been in this situation, but he figured that this was far beyond what even she could have dealt with.

He steadfastly ignored the one-sided conversation that Sam was carrying to study what should have been Danny. He compared what he saw to what he knew about ghosts, how they formed, what drove them, and everything else he had learned since the Accident. The rambling from both ghost hunters that he had always zoned out of were now committed to his memory, and he started sorting through this knowledge to attempt to decipher… whatever he was looking at.

It was clear that he wasn’t a ghost, even beside the fact that there was a limited time-frame for one to become a ghost, and Danny had passed that time. The boy didn’t glow like a ghost, and he looked almost exactly like he had in life, barring the injuries from the Accident.

But he was dead. He should have moved on by now. Even if Sam had somehow come across an actual ritual to raise the dead, there shouldn’t have been a soul left for her to bind to his body.

Maybe that was it, though. Maybe she had waited long enough for him to start moving on, but not for him to be completely gone yet. Maybe she just caught a snippet, an impression of the real Danny. That would explain why he didn’t seem to be doing anything. He was a mere shade of the boy she had tried to bring back.

  


He had hoped, at the time, that Sam would realize the truth behind Phantom, and let the last piece of Danny move on. He still holds that same hope, but he knows it is increasingly unlikely, as she continues to pretend that Phantom is Danny.

He wonders, sometimes, when she would let go of this fantasy of hers. He wonders if he could somehow break through her illusion, and forcibly drag her back to reality. He doesn’t think it likely that that would end well, however, and therefore doesn’t try. While he might break through and get her to release the shard of Danny that he had dubbed Phantom, he thinks it at least equally likely that she would snap and go even crazier. He doesn’t feel like risking an existence like Phantom. He still has too much to live for.

But he doesn’t want to leave Phantom to Sam’s fickle will, and so he continues to come when she invites him. Even if Phantom doesn’t acknowledge him, and likely isn’t even aware of him, Tucker hopes that Danny knows.

It’s a divine punishment of sorts, he supposes, to watch over Sam as she plays pretend. He didn’t interfere before, didn’t stop either of his friends when they set out to make the biggest mistakes of their lives, and so he doesn’t interfere now.

He had been there when Danny walked into the Portal. He hadn’t stopped him. Quite the opposite, in fact, he had encouraged his friend to walk into the enormous machine, despite knowing that it might be dangerous. Most of the FentonWorks equipment was, and this was a monstrosity that was supposed to defy the natural order and tear open a pathway into a different dimension. He hadn’t stopped Danny from walking in, and he hadn’t done anything except scream when it turned on. He didn’t think about what happened until much, much later, and by then there was nothing he could do for his best friend.

And when Sam announced to him her plans to bring Danny back, what had he done? He had yelled at her, despite knowing that she was far past reasoning, and then he had let her storm off without stopping her.

As he watches Phantom, he wonders, “What would have happened if I had stopped either of them?”

But he will never know.


	4. Corruption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one has the power to change the past, only to delay the inevitable. Danny never realized until it was too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Major character death (implied), descriptions of the destruction of (animal) ghosts
> 
> Honestly not as dark or graphic as I was aiming for, and not nearly as emotionally-heavy either. But uhh, still kinda dark I guess?

It was such a slow, gradual change that Danny still doesn't know where it went wrong. Even if he was given another chance, another shot at redemption, he wouldn't know what to change. Last time it was so easy, an obvious mistake with awful consequences, but this time there was no clear turning point.

It started so long ago, although he isn’t sure when, exactly, that was. He likes to think that it was somewhere soon after defeating his evil future self, but he thinks it had started even before that.

At first it was so innocent, almost impossible to tell apart from his normal thoughts. Quiet suggestions that he should defend himself from Dash, that he should fight back, not for himself, but for all of Dash’s victims.

He could see the justice in this, and he listened. The next time Dash attacked him, Danny fought him off. The nerds had celebrated him, and while Sam didn’t approve, Tucker was more than understanding.

When Dash tried again, Danny simply fought back even harder. And the next time, he hit even harder. By the time Dash gave up, not just on Danny, but on all bullying, even Tucker disapproved of his violence. He agreed that it was a good thing that Dash would stop bullying, especially since the other bullies would likely follow his example, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to take it this far.

Danny agreed, but the quiet voice inside his head didn’t let him say so, so he didn’t.

Dash wasn’t the only opponent that Danny faced with increasing amounts of violence, however. The ghosts that continued to harass him and his town were also subjected to his wrath. He beat them up far more than necessary to trap them in the thermos, and he got a vicious kind of pleasure from doing so.

He knew it was wrong to go against his moral code like this, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. The quiet voice in his head crowed in pleasure, and in doing so it drowned out Danny’s own protests.

His senseless violence continued to escalate, and he started going on patrols without Sam and Tucker more and more often. They didn’t approve, he knew, but they couldn’t scold him about it if they didn’t know it had happened.

It was during one of these solo fights that he took the next step towards the inevitable. He was chasing some sort of ecto-animal, barely sentient enough to be aware of its environment, but an absolute pain in Danny’s ass. He had caught the critter several times, depositing it into the Ghost Zone every time, but it continued to find its way out.

Even the severe beatings that Danny delivered didn’t teach it to stay away, and he was just so _tired_ of fighting this same ghost over and over again. The quiet voice in his mind had an idea to stop the ghost from returning, and Danny gladly obeyed.

He didn’t even think about what he was doing as he pinned the critter down with one hand, charging an ecto-blast in the other. He pressed the charged ball of energy against the chest of the small animal and released it, obliterating the core of the ghost. Afterwards, he dutifully sucked up the remaining ectoplasm, dumped it into the Ghost Zone, and promptly forgot about it, never stopping to think about what, exactly, he had done.

The quiet voice continued to encourage him to destroy ghosts (although it never actually said anything along those lines, only that he was _taking care of problems_ in a more _permanent_ way), and so Danny continued to obliterate any non-sentient ghosts that crossed him.

It was only a matter of time before someone spotted Phantom doing so, and word quickly spread. Within the hour, everyone in Amity seemed to know about Phantom destroying other ghosts, and everyone had their own opinion about the matter. Some were glad to see that bothersome ghosts would never return, others thought that Phantom had gone too far, and others still thought that this was the start of a slippery slope, a clear tell that Phantom wasn’t the well-behaved ghost he pretended to be.

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz were upset, of course. They knew that Danny had been patrolling without them more and more, and they suspected that he was doing so to hide his violence from them, but they never thought it would be this bad.

They demanded to know why he would do this, but he couldn’t tell them. He didn’t want to tell them about the quiet little voice that encouraged him, and it’s not like he did any real harm. The ecto-animals he destroyed were barely sentient, and did little more than cause trouble. The world was better off without them.

Their protests that people said that about most ghosts, including himself, were ignored.

Their attempts to follow him on patrols went unheeded as well, as they were easy to lose, and he made sure to restrain himself when they were around.

The reality of what he had been doing still didn’t hit Danny when he destroyed a humanoid ghost for the first time.

 

Amity Park had grown quieter. The animal ghosts avoided the city, and even the more intelligent ghosts had started to shy away. Instead of enjoying the peace, Danny grew restless and paranoid, and the voice was quick to strike. It started to encourage him to act pro-actively in his defense of the city, instead of waiting for trouble to come.

As Danny pondered how to achieve this, the voice started pointing him in the direction of ghosts who posed a threat to him, ghosts who might endanger his loved ones.

It was an obvious choice. There were many ghosts who endangered the city, but there was only a single ghost who posed such a clear threat to Danny’s family and friends.

And so Danny left for the Ghost Zone, finding his way to Clockwork’s tower with surprising ease.

The Fenton Thermos sat on a table, unattended.

Danny removed the empty Thermos that he wore on his back, and replaced it with the Thermos that contained his future self.

On his way out, he glanced at the screens that Clockwork used to view the timeline. He saw familiar imagery of his evil future self destroying Amity Park, and took it as silent encouragement from Clockwork.

He left the tower, and left the empty Thermos.

Actually destroying his future self was easier said than done, however. He knew he couldn’t win in a direct battle, and he didn’t want to risk the full ghost escaping.

His parents’ inventions provided the solution for his troubles. He managed to find a cage strong enough to hold the evil Phantom, and the questionably-named Ecto-Stoppo-Power-Erfier would then be used to strip the ghost of his powers. After that, destroying him was easy, especially when he remembered everything the ghost had done.

 

Danny still didn’t think about what he had done. The voice continued to whisper its approval to him, telling him that the full ghost had it coming, that he deserved it.

The voice continued to encourage Danny’s violence, and Danny continued to listen obediently. He grew sullen and withdrawn, with a short fuse and vicious when angered. Mr. Lancer and his parents grew concerned as well, and his sister, Sam, and Tucker hovered around him almost constantly.

They tried to help, in their own ways, but their words were almost incomprehensible to him. The voice, which had steadily grown louder, drowned them out with ease.

They were worried about him, he could tell, but nothing he did seemed to calm them down. He wanted to help them, his friends, his sister, his parents, and his teacher, but he didn’t know how.

Luckily, the voice knew.

And, just like before, Danny obeyed.

 

Suddenly, the voice grew quiet, and for the first time in who-knows how long, Danny had only his own thoughts to keep him company.

He couldn’t really remember what he had been doing. He knew that Jazz, and Sam and Tucker, and his parents, and even Mr. Lancer had been worried about him. He had wanted to help them, he remembered, but he hadn’t known how.

He knew he _had_ helped them. He just couldn’t remember what he had done to achieve this.

It was then that he started to take in where he was. He didn’t recognize the area, as it had turned unrecognizable by some sort of great violence. There was debris littered around everywhere, and fire as well. The streets had emptied out, with no one around.

Had a ghost attacked? Were his loved ones safe?

He made to take off, and saw his gloves as he raised his clenched fists.

His gloves, which had once been white, were heavily stained with something red.

He looked at his hands, slowly opening and closing them. The red which stained them glittered, liquid moving as the gloves underneath shifted.

He knew it was blood, but he wasn’t sure _how_ he knew. He wanted to blame the (not so) little voice, but it remained silent.

Suddenly remembering the situation, he shoved away his concerns about the blood on his gloves, and whirled around to inspect the area. He saw something moving from the corner of his vision and almost blasted it, but closer inspection showed that he had seen himself reflected in a shattered window.

He was about to laugh at himself for his own stupidity, but something felt off about his reflection, stopping him. Danny drifted closer to the window, and looked at himself.

Ruby red eyes looked back.

His skin was stained by soot, but the color seemed off. Automatically, Danny reached up to wipe some of it off. The skin underneath was discolored, a strange blue rather than his normal tan.

He closed his eyes, refusing to accept what he saw. He turned around, eyes still closed, and tried to force it out of his mind.

Something tickled the back of his neck, a welcome distraction. Until he realized that the tickling was his own hair, and he could _feel_ it flickering like fire. Dread washed over him, heavy and cold.

Opening his eyes again, he pulled down a lock of his hair to inspect. Just as he had feared, it continued to wisp in his hand, despite the lack of wind.

Releasing it again, Danny turned back to look at his reflection. He nervously licked his lips, and shivered as he felt (and saw) a narrow snake-like tongue instead of his normal tongue. He grimaced, and saw the light glint off of his fangs.

“No...” he whispered, but suddenly he _knew_.

The voice, which had haunted him for months, steadily increasing in volume, didn’t just sound familiar because it was his mind’s voice. It had sounded familiar because it was _his_ voice, the voice of his future self.

“No,” he repeated, stronger, and he whirled around to search the area around him.

His eye was suddenly drawn towards a bright sign in the rubble, and he instantly recognized it, despite the damage done to it. It had once read “Nasty Burger”, but most of the letters had been burned or blown off.

He glanced around himself, still looking for his loved ones, but he knew he wouldn’t find them. Not alive, at least.

He halted, inhaled sharply, and then turned back to his house. He had to speak with Clockwork.

He had to fix this, somehow.

 

But Clockwork didn’t show himself. The tower was as empty as the last time, and the screens still displayed the same imagery. Danny found himself watching them, and slowly realized that he had misjudged their purpose during his last visit.

They weren’t quiet encouragement from Clockwork to destroy his future self. They were a warning of the path he had taken.

He hadn’t listened.

Clockwork couldn’t change the past, he could only steer the future. And Danny hadn’t followed the correction, had instead followed the voice of his future self.

And so Clockwork could do nothing to help him, or his loved ones.

He ruefully thought to himself that this future was inevitable, after all.


	5. Harvest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vlad harvests the results of his newest plan to get his perfect little family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vlad-centric sequel to day 2 - Disappearance + Alone. No content warnings apply.
> 
> Without doubt the fic that changed the most, because I couldn't think of anything that I liked. After writing the first four fics, I decided that I liked the setting of Disappearance so much that I wanted to write something more for it, and I really didn't like the previous concepts that I had for Harvest, so here we are! It's... not really related to the word 'harvest' at all but whatever.

The first few days after Danny returned home were a mess. Everyone was constantly trailing behind him, checking up on him, and being affectionate to him. They meant well, Danny knew, but he had spend the last year in the Ghost Zone with only Wulf for company. And while Wulf was also very loving, there was a big difference in how he showed it compared to Danny’s family and friends.

And beside the coddling by his loved ones, there was also the matter of official business. Danny had been missing for well over a year, and while the police might not have believed his parents when they were first called in, the constant presence of ghosts in Amity Park had changed their minds.

So now Danny (and his loved ones) had to explain how Danny had survived for so long in an environment like the Ghost Zone, and how he had gotten back. In the end, they cobbled together a mostly-true story involving Wulf and Phantom.

And then there was the matter of school. Danny had gone missing just after the start of his freshman year of high school, and had returned several months into the next school year. Several options were discussed, and in the end they decided that Danny was to join the freshman class next year. This way, he had time to recover from his traumatic experiences, or so the school decided.

Danny’s parents thought this gave them a good opportunity to settle Danny back into regular life, and Danny hoped that he could use this time to find a good balance between ‘regular life’ and what had been his regular life the past year; ghost hunting.

His parents were of the opinion that he should give up ghost hunting, of course, but were eventually swayed by the tag-team of Danny and Jazz – Danny didn’t want to stop, and Jazz thought that ghost hunting had become such a vital part of Danny’s life that quitting would have severe negative impacts on him.

So instead the Fentons and Phantom developed their truce into a proper alliance, making sure to wait a few weeks so no-one would connect Danny’s return to this sudden development, and the three of them started ghost hunting together.

Danny also taught his parents about the Ghost Zone, and its resident ghosts. They created extensive Ghost Files, focusing first on the ghosts that targeted Amity Park, but also noting all of Danny’s friends and allies.

Of course, after a few weeks of smothering by his loved ones, Danny was getting pretty sick of it. Sam and Tucker had listened to his begging and had started backing off, giving Danny time and space to himself, and Jazz’s extensive knowledge about psychology meant that she could tell that he couldn’t handle it anymore, but his parents struggled to do the same.

Having learned that their Portal was directly responsible for Danny’s disappearance, rather than indirectly like they had thought, meant that their previously collected grief and guilt had multiplied thousandfold. They tried to make up for it, and Danny loved them for it, but not even patrols or ghost fighting could get them off of his tail.

So when, roughly a month after he had come home, his mom and sister received an invitation to some kind of event in Florida, he was quick to jump on the opportunity.

They didn’t want to go, not without him, but the letter was quite clear about it. The invitation from the DALV company was directed towards Madeline Fenton and her daughter Jasmine Fenton, asking them to attend a mother/daughter science symposium in Florida, all expenses paid for.

In the end, Danny convinced them to go, telling them that he could spend the time doing some father/son bonding with his dad.

  


Mere hours after his mother and Jazz had left, the first ghost attacked. It wasn’t a particularly threatening ghost, just some kind of mutant animal, and Danny watched his dad deal with it without breaking a sweat. The only thing noteworthy about the encounter was that it had attacked FentonWorks, rather than some random civilian in the streets. But Danny and his dad shrugged it off, and went back to tinkering with some of their ghost hunting equipment.

But it wasn’t long before another ghost attacked, and another, and then suddenly they started attacking as one massive group.

Separately, they weren’t anything special. They were all animal ghosts, no more intelligent than their living counterparts, and all seemed to be based on North American animals, though severely mutated. Danny could spot rabbits, wolves, bears, and even a few beavers, among others. It was a rather bizarre ensemble, but not terribly threatening.

It was still rather suspicious, however. The large group of them, all specifically targeting FentonWorks, made Danny suspect that someone had send them on purpose. Whoever had send them clearly hadn’t counted on Danny’s presence, however, since it was clearly meant to be an ambush, intended to quickly overwhelm the humans present.

Danny’s ghost sense alerted him preemptively, and when the ghosts arrived, they were met by a transformed Danny Phantom and a well-equipped Jack Fenton.

The first ghost phased through the door, and was immediately blasted out again by a well-aimed ecto-ray from Danny. The next few followed the same pattern, getting knocked out the moment they came in by either Danny or his dad.

The ghosts wizened up and tried entering in a larger group, but Danny simply called on his cryokinesis and froze them solid, and his dad swiftly captured the immobile ghosts in a Fenton Thermos.

This seemed to drive the attacking ghosts into desperation, as they suddenly stormed inside, all of them attacking together. They were quick to pick up on the bigger threat, and went exclusively after Danny.

They were no match for Danny, however, and he swiftly dealt with them. He saw his dad picking off the stragglers, but the man avoided shooting the mass of ghosts, obviously afraid of hitting his son by accident.

After the ghosts were all dealt with, the two ghost hunters were left with barely a scratch on them, grinning at each other victoriously.

“Good job Danny-boy!” Jack crowed, clapping his son on the shoulder with such force that Danny flipped over mid-air.

“Thanks dad,” he answered, rubbing the back of his neck as he righted himself again.

He watched the man wander back downstairs, carrying several Thermoses filled with ghostly animals, and he couldn’t help wondering who had sent the ghosts after them, and more importantly, why. They weren’t targeting Danny, as he had feared, because they clearly hadn’t expected him to be there.

But he couldn’t think of anyone, and he decided that he had more productive things to do with his time, so he phased through the floor to rejoin his dad in the lab.

* * *

 

Vlad eyed the papers lying on his desk with contempt. He enjoyed his role as billionaire, and the power that came with it, but he could honestly do without the paperwork.

Playing with people, manipulating them to play to his wishes, was something he liked. To maintain his power to do so, he needed to do paperwork. He knew this very well.

That didn’t make it any less boring, though.

His thoughts wandered back to his latest plan to get his hands on the ever-stunning Maddie, and to get rid of the oaf that called himself her husband, Jack. He had send Maddie and her daughter (who seemed to be taking after her, rather than that idiot of a father) off to Florida, and had arranged for several of his mutant animals to attack Jack while he was alone.

While he was forced to admit that Jack and Maddie were a fairly competent ghost-hunting team, it was clear that Maddie was the main force. Without her, Jack would easily be overwhelmed by the mass of ghosts that Vlad had send after him.

He glanced at the papers again, before standing up, his mind made up. It had been a day since he had send out the ghosts, and he was sure that they had succeeded by now.

He is eager to reap the benefits of his ingenious plan, and set off to travel to Amity Park.

  


When Vlad arrives at FentonWorks, he’s… rather surprised. He had expected to find absolute carnage, the building wrecked by the flood of barely-sentient ghosts he had set upon it. Instead the house stood tall and proud, the bizarre metal contraption still balanced on top, and the garish neon sign still hung from the front as well.

In fact, the whole building seemed entirely undamaged. There was nothing that suggests that the ghosts had been here, but Vlad _knows_ they must have been. There was a barely-noticeable hint of ectoplasm in the air which hinted at a large-scale ghost encounter, but it might also be a side-effect from the constant presence of ghosts in Amity Park.

He floats there for what feels like an eternity, wondering how his minions had failed, before deciding to throw caution to the wind and find out.

He glances around, making sure that there is no one around to see, and then transforms back to his human form, returning to the visible plane as well.

He hesitates for a moment with his finger hovering over the doorbell, steels himself for the apparently inevitable encounter with Jack Fenton that he was going to have to suffer through, and presses down. He listens for the thundering footsteps of the oaf, but it stays quiet. He considers the possibility that his animals had been successful after all and simply hadn’t damaged the building in the process, but then the door opens.

Standing in the opening isn’t Jack, however. The boy bore a clear resemblance to him, with black hair and crystalline blue eyes, but he was smaller and much slighter, and dressed in a t-shirt and jeans instead of a blindingly orange jumpsuit.

Vlad recognizes the boy, of course. He had seen plenty of pictures, had listened to Maddie and consoled her in the hopes of winning her over, knowing that the boy was likely long-dead. No one survived for long in the Ghost Zone.

Yet here the boy stood, frowning at him. Vlad groans inwardly as he realized that the boy didn’t know him, but flashes him a polite smile regardless.

He wasn’t sure how Daniel ‘Danny’ Fenton had found his way home after his lengthy trip into the Ghost Zone, but he was already here to solve one mystery, so he might as well attempt to solve this one too.

“I don’t believe we’ve met before, have we? Vlad Masters, pleased to meet you,” he introduces himself, offering his hand to the boy.

“Uhm, no, I don’t think so. I’m Danny. Uh, Danny Fenton.” He shakes Vlad’s hand, but continues to eye him with barely-hidden suspicion.

“Ah, the missing son, home at last. Your parents must be so happy to have you back.”

“Yeah, I guess so… No offense, but why does it matter to you?”

“They haven’t mentioned me, have they? I guess it’s not too surprising, as they likely had other things on their minds. I’m an old friend from college, and we’ve recently reconnected. Are they home, perchance?” He shot another winning smile in the direction of the boy, but it was clearly ignored.

“Mom is away with Jazz, but dad is home. If you come in I’ll go get him from the lab.” He steps away from the door to let Vlad in, and Vlad gladly entered.

“Please do, thank you.”

Danny vaguely points him towards the couch in the living room before racing off towards the kitchen, where Vlad knew the door to the lab was located. He couldn’t hear the conversation between the boy and his father, but the thundering footsteps coming up the stairs are hard to miss.

Jack bounces over and grasps Vlad in a bone-crushing hug of the Fenton variety, but was quickly coaxed to let go by his son.

“V-man, what a surprise! I see you’ve met Danny already!” he booms, and Vlad barely stops himself from wincing at the sheer volume.

“Yes, and I’m glad to see that he has returned to you in excellent health. Has he been home for long?”

“About a month, give or take. But we’ve been so busy with all the official stuff and informing everyone that we must have forgotten to tell you. Sorry, Vladdie!”

Vlad grimaces at the mention of another of his old nicknames, but quickly smooths out his expression again. “I completely understand, old friend of mine. Mind introducing us? We’ve exchanged names, of course, but I’m afraid I don’t know him outside of his disappearance.”

“Of course, of course! Danny, this is my old friend from college, Vlad Masters! And Vlad, this is my son, Danny!” He claps his son on the back with such force that the boy almost falls over, and Vlad instantly sympathizes with the kid. He briefly wonders how the boy had survived 15 years with this man as his father, but decides that Maddie must have protected her kids from any Jack-related danger.

“Dad,” the boy groans, “he already said all of that at the door when I let him in. Why don’t you tell us something new, like how you two know each other or something?”

Jack smiles broadly at his son. “That’s a great idea! We’ve got so many great stories, Vladdie and I, and some with your mom as well, of course. Let’s sit down on the couch and we can tell you all about our college days, right V-man?”

“Yes, that sounds good.” He moves towards the armchair, no doubt in his mind that Jack would have sat right next to him if he sat on the couch. Danny sat down on the couch instead, and Jack moved to sit right next to him.

They spend a short while talking about the past, about Jack and Vlad sharing a room in college, about their shared research into ghosts, and various other stories. The Proto-Portal and the accident involving it never came up, but Jack didn’t seem to be avoiding the topic on purpose. No, it seemed like it had just slipped his mind, as if it wasn’t important enough to mention. Unbelievable.

Vlad steers the topic back to Danny in the hopes of learning more about his disappearance, but the boy tells him all about everything _except_ his time in the Ghost Zone. The boy seems rather restrained, and keeps eyeing him with suspicion, but Vlad isn’t sure why. Lingering trauma from his interactions with ghosts, maybe?

Suddenly the boy shifts, glancing away from Vlad and his father.

“Ah shoot, sorry dad, Vlad, I completely forgot that I had to meet Sam and Tucker at the Nasty Burger.” He quickly stands up. “It was nice meeting you Vlad, sorry that I have to leave so suddenly.”

Vlad waves him off. “Of course my boy, it was a pleasure meeting you as well. Perhaps another time, hmm?”

Daniel nods, and swiftly exits the house. Vlad watches him leave, and found that he was still no closer to uncovering the truth behind the boy. Well, perhaps it would come up in conversation between him and his friends.

And lucky for Vlad, he was a great spy.

He quickly excuses himself, telling Jack that he has to go to the bathroom. With the door locked, he transforms into his ghost form, duplicates himself, and then has the duplicate turn himself back into Vlad Masters. While he typically would have send a duplicate as his spy, he had already listened to Jack ramble on for far longer than he liked.

He sends the duplicate back to Jack, then turns himself invisible and phases out of the building, hoping to catch Daniel before he met his friends.

The boy turned out to be even easier to find than he had expected, because he hadn’t gone very far at all. Vlad watches the boy duck into an alley right next to the house, and frowns to himself. What was that boy up to?

He flies closer to take a look, and sees Daniel shiver and breathe out a blue mist. What on Earth was going on here?

The boy took on a defensive posture, glancing around himself warily. Vlad wasn’t sure what Daniel was planning on doing if he saw a threat, since it would most likely be a ghost and he didn’t seem to be carrying any weapons.

His question is soon answered, however, by a flash of bright light. He watches as a glowing white ring forms around Daniel’s waist, and _oh._ Even if the color was different, he _kn_ _ows_ what this means.

The ring quickly splits apart, and the two white halos follow their path across Daniel’s body. When they disappear, the ghost left behind is one Vlad recognizes from stories and photos – Phantom.

Well, that answers the mystery as to how Daniel survived in the Ghost Zone for over a year. He is a half-ghost, just like Vlad. He couldn’t believe it. Another half-ghost existed! He isn’t alone anymore! And even better, this half-ghost isn’t just anybody, he is Maddie’s _son_. Vlad _ha_ _s_ to have this boy as part of his family.

Vlad watches as Phantom ( _Dan_ _iel_ ) launches himself into the air, once again surveying the area. He was clearly prepared for a ghost fight, but why? There was nothing to indicate the presence of another ghost, even if he was right.

But then a scream comes from a house nearby, and Danny zips off towards it. Vlad follows at a more sedate pace, and finds Danny intangibly shoving the Box Ghost through a wall. Once removed from the house, Danny fires an ecto-ray at the other ghost, quickly followed by an ice ray, which freezes the Box Ghost to the wall he had been blasted into.

“Well Boxy, I don’t know how you keep getting out, but hopefully you’ll stay away a little longer this time,” the boy mutters, uncapping the thermos he had slung across his back, and quickly captures the immobilized ghost.

Vlad silently judges the boy’s skills, and found that he was… rather impressed. He knows a thing or two about Phantom, of course, because who didn’t. But knowing about his abilities, and seeing him use them in actual combat are two very different things, especially now that he knew that he was watching a fellow halfa.

Seeing that Danny was about to fly away, and noting that they were in a rather isolated area, Vlad decides that this was a good opportunity to recruit the boy.

He slowly claps his hands, a grin on his face as he returns to visibility. “Well done Daniel, well done.”

The boy stiffens and whirls around, one hand tightened around the Thermos it held while the other started glowing green. He scowls at Vlad, but made no direct move to attack. Clever boy, prepared for a fight but not starting it. “I don’t know who you are and quite frankly I don’t care either. Who told you my name?”

Vlad tuts and shakes his head. “My boy, you told me yourself. Surely you didn’t think you were the only half-ghost in existence, did you?”

Daniel’s eyes widen, and Vlad felt his smile grow wider. “No way, really? But that means...” he trails off, eyes roving over Vlad. “Vlad? Vlad Masters, my dad’s old friend from college?”

And Vlad lets his own transformation wash over him, the black rings taking away Plasmius and returning him back to his human form. “Indeed, the one and only.”

Daniel flies closer, as if in disbelief, still inspecting Vlad. “But you look so- so _different_. And _how_? And-, and-”

Vlad raises a hand, stopping Daniel’s barrage of questions. “Slow down, slow down. Yes, I look quite different in my ghost form. It was quite on purpose, I assure you. As for how, an accident in college involving the prototype for your parents’ Ghost Portal.”

Daniel frowns at him. “In college? So you’ve been half-ghost for what, 20 years? But my parents didn’t know about the existence of half-ghosts until I told them. Were they not there when it happened, like when I had my accident?”

“No, they were there. In fact, it was your dad’s fault it happened in the first place. The buffoon plugged in the Portal while I was standing right in front of it, and it exploded outwards, right into my face! I had to go to the hospital for a terrible case of ecto-acne, it took me years to recover.”

“Wait, so did it not… instantly turn you into a ghost? And the explosion only hit your face, not your whole body? Was the prototype smaller than the regular Portal?” Daniel was eyeing Vlad with a calculating look in his eyes. Vlad quietly approved. The boy is clever, clearly takes after his mother. A worthy addition to the Masters family, for sure.

“No, it did not. The Proto-Portal was barely big enough for one to fit their head through, and the contaminated ectoplasm it spewed wasn’t strong enough for such a drastic change. At the time, it only leeched the color out of my hair and caused the ecto-acne. The rest came more slowly.

Which brings me to my next point. You’ve been a half-ghost for what, a year?” Daniel nods. “As you’ve figured out yourself, I’ve had my powers for more than twenty years. Even if your skills are fairly impressive, you could do with proper guidance and training from another hybrid. Join me, and I’ll help you master your powers, teach you everything I know. All you have to do is renounce your idiot father.”

“Dude, you’re nuts. I _just_ got my own family back, and you think I’m gonna abandon them just to join you? No way.” Daniel scowls at him, and Vlad realizes that he had taken the wrong approach to recruiting the boy.

“I’ve done fine figuring out my powers alone, and now I have my friends and family to help too. I don’t need your help.” Daniel looks around them, and nods to himself before turning back to Vlad.

“Look, I’m guessing that you’re not here to cause any trouble, only to talk to me?” Seeing Vlad nod, he continues. “Good, in that case I should get going. My friends are waiting for me.”

Daniel turns around again and speeds off, almost immediately turning himself invisible. Vlad remains in the alley, sorting through his plans. He _ha_ _s_ to get the boy, but it clearly wasn’t as simple as he had hoped. He would have to win the boy over, make him realize how much better off he would be with Vlad as his father instead of Jack.

The best way to do this, Vlad decides, is to train young Daniel anyway. That way he can show the difference he would make, how much of an improvement he would be over that oaf. But how can he get the boy to agree to training, especially since he just offered it at too high a price?

Well, the boy doesn’t have to accept if his _parents_ do. They must know that Daniel is Phantom, it’s too obvious for clever Maddie to miss, and if she knows then she must have told Jack. And if they accept their son, then they will likely also accept their old college friend.

And if he tells them that he has been half-ghost since the accident in college, then they will surely see the benefits to having him train Daniel.

Yes, that could work. He’ll have to return another time, when Maddie is home. A weekday, so that the children will be at school.

He shifts back to his ghost form and returns to FentonWorks, where he recombines with his duplicate and excuses himself, swiftly leaving the conversation with Jack. He has much to think about, but the seeds for a new plan have been planted. In due time, he will get to harvest the results, his beautiful new family.

  


And so, roughly a week later, Vlad returns to FentonWorks.

He rings the bell and waits, tracking Jack’s progress to the door based on his thundering footsteps. The door swings open, and there stands the enormous orange idiot himself.

“Vladdie! What a surprise! Come in, come in.” He steps aside to let Vlad in, his whole face lit up in a huge smile.

“Vlad? Surely you didn’t come all the way from Wisconsin just to visit us?” Maddie (wondrous, amazing Maddie) questions as she emerges from the kitchen, pulling down her hood to reveal her stunning violet eyes.

“I did, but worry not, it was no hassle.” Maddie frowns at him, but Jack claps him on the back and starts to guide him towards the couch before she could say anything else.

“Well, I’m glad to see you again V-man! Have a seat, and then we can talk about why you’re here.”

Maddie trails behind them, sitting down next to Jack on the couch. “Yes, although I’m not sure why you couldn’t have called.”

Vlad, seeing that he couldn’t sit on the couch next to Maddie, sits down in the armchair once again. “I could have called, yes, but I wanted to talk about something very important, and I feared it was too… sensitive to discuss over the phone.”

“Vlad, what is this about? Did something happen?”

“Not recently, no. I wanted to talk with you about the accident in college, with the Proto-Portal.”

Maddie and Jack share a confused look with each other, both trying to figure out why he brought it up. Maddie, clever as always, figures it out first. He watches as she grows wide-eyed and stares at him.

“You’re… Are you?”

Jack frowns. “Is he what, Maddie? I don’t get it.”

Vlad ignores the oaf, focuses on Maddie, and nods. “I am.”

He stands up, suddenly, and calls on his ghostly core. A single glowing black ring forms around his waist, where it splits apart and slowly makes it way over his body. The rings transform his expensive black suit into a much simpler white outfit, accessorized with a black belt, black boots, and black gloves. The look is finished by the high-collared cape he wears, the inside as red as his eyes. His skin is an unnatural blue, and his eyes empty and pupil-less. His hair is swept out of its ponytail and into a spiked haircut, as black as it had been before his accident. The rings fade away, and Vlad grins at his love and her husband, revealing sharp fangs.

“You’re- holy moly V-man, you’re-” Jack falls into an uncharacteristic silence, and he and Maddie share a silent conversation.

“Vlad, we’re… we’re so sorry. That this happened to you, and that you felt like you couldn’t tell us about this.” Jack nods, but for once doesn’t speak.

“It’s fine, I assure you. I will admit that I was pretty… peeved, but it’s been twenty years. I’m over it.” He waves off their concerns and returns to human form before sitting back down. “Now, there was something else I wanted to talk about as well.

Your son, Daniel, is a half-ghost as well, correct?”

“How did you find out, Vladdie? I mean, you didn’t even know Danny until you two met last weekend.”

“It was rather obvious to me. But then, I already knew that ghostly hybrids such as us exist, so it was a rather obvious answer for his miraculous survival in the Ghost Zone. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

Maddie frowns at him. “Then what _did_ you want to talk about? You’re the one who brought up Danny.”

“Well, I’ll get straight to the point then. As I mentioned, I’ve had my powers for over twenty years. Your son has had them for barely a year. With my experience, I could help train him, and help him understand our… shared condition. We are the only two known hybrids, after all.”

“Vladdie, what a brilliant idea! I would love for you to help Danny! Just imagine,” Jack wipes away an imaginary tear, “my best friend and my son bonding over ghost hunting.”

“Yes, it sounds like a very good idea, as long as Danny agrees. He should be in his room, I’ll ask for him to come join us.”

She stands up and leaves, and Vlad curses to himself. He had picked a weekday in the hopes that Daniel wouldn’t be home, but the boy apparently hadn’t gone back to school yet, likely because he had only recently reappeared. Oh butter biscuits, he might remember Vlad’s previous offer and refuse again.

Maddie soon returns, Daniel trailing behind her.

“Danny-boy, Vlad here offered to help you train because he’s a half-ghost too! Isn’t that exciting!” Jack booms, and Vlad winces away from the sudden shout. He sees Daniel quirk a smile, but the boy quickly wipes it away in favor of frowning at him.

“Yeah, that’s… incredible. I dunno dad, I don’t really, y’know, know him.” He shrugs listlessly, and Vlad resists the urge to roll his eyes. Stubborn teenager.

“Well Danny, you could get to know each other during training, of course. Maybe we can try it out a few times, and if it doesn’t work, we can always take back over?” Maddie lays her hands on Daniel’s shoulders, clearly attempting to convince him. He wasn’t easily swayed, however.

“Maybe… Can we do the training here, in the lab?”

“I guess, but my dear boy, I have specialized rooms that we could use to train. Wouldn’t it be better to use those?”

The boy continues to frown at him. “We _could_ , but if we train here mom and dad can watch as well. And Jazz, and Sam and Tucker too.”

“Well, it _would_ be pretty enlightening to watch you two train, and I can see why you might want your friends to come visit during training as well. We’ve got space to train in the lab as well, and we can adapt it to your needs as well.”

“Yes, I suppose that would be possible. So how about weekly training here in the lab, every Saturday, starting this weekend?”

Daniel nods, but shoots him one last suspicious glance. “Yeah, that sounds good. Was that all?”

“Yes, thank you Danny. Let me know if you’re going out, okay sweetie?”

Daniel nods at his mother before speeding back up the stairs. Vlad watches him go, smiling to himself. Soon enough the boy would be his. But he has to be patient. It would be no easy task to win the boy over during their training sessions.

But Vlad Masters always got what he wanted, and what he wanted was his beloved family.

  


The training sessions go well, all things considered. Daniel might lack proper training, but he has acquired a lot of skills during his time in the Ghost Zone, and he is a good student. He listens well, follows instructions to a t, and is adaptable to no end. The only thing that holds him back is his impatience, but coaching from his friends and family help him stay motivated.

Vlad hadn’t been sure about the inclusion of Daniel’s loved ones when they first started training, but they proved to be more helpful than distracting. While he did his best to compliment Daniel’s progress, the support from his family and friends was much more powerful.

He often found himself watching Daniel during their breaks. The interactions between the boy and his family made him alternate between sick and pleased, sharp pangs of jealousy whenever Jack and the boy got along well but enjoying seeing his future wife and her son together. But it was Daniel’s friendship with the two teens that really struck a cord with Vlad.

He saw Daniel and Samantha and Tucker, saw them play and joke and screw around with each other, and he was reminded of his college days. He looked, and he saw Jack, Maddie, and himself. And he found that he _missed_ that friendship.

He realized, suddenly, that he desired more than just a wife and kids. He wanted to be loved, not just as a husband and a father, but as a friend.

And as he continued to watch Daniel and his family, he realized that they were all irreversibly connected. Maddie and Daniel cared far too deeply about Jack, and Jasmine as well, to separate any of them. Doing so would change who they were, permanently.

And Vlad found that he didn’t want them to change. He didn’t want to break up this family.

And he was horrified when he realized what he had almost done. In his desperation, he had almost screwed up his only chance at happiness with Maddie, just because he wasn’t happy with what he had. He threw away his friendship with her just because he wanted _more_ , because he wanted something he would never even _get._

Because he could see, now, that Maddie was happy with Jack. Far happier than she would ever be with him.

But they hadn’t abandoned him, despite the fact that he carried some childish grudge against them for two _decades_. Jack still cheered him on like nothing had ever happened, and Maddie started to open back up as well.

Vlad vowed to himself that he wouldn’t let this chance pass him by. He was given a second chance, and by God was he going to take it.

He might not become Maddie’s beloved husband, but he could be her dear friend. Hers, and Jack’s, of course. He would rekindle their lost friendship, even if it was the last thing he would ever do.

And luckily for him, his old friends were more than happy to accept him back in their lives, and into their family.

  


“Hey, uncle Vlad?” Danny asks as he floats over to where Vlad was seated in a plush chair. They were in Vlad’s office in his new mansion in Amity Park, where Vlad had been working on, _ugh_ , paperwork.

“Yes, little badger?” Vlad looks up from the papers spread over his desk to smile at the boy, seeing his grimace at the nickname.

“I was thinking about the first time we met. Back then you asked me to join you so we could train together. I refused, because you wanted me to renounce my dad, but then days later you came by and asked my parents instead.”

“Yes, I remember that. I was quite impressed by your swift take-down of the Box Ghost.”

“Right, right. But I don’t understand why you asked me to abandon my dad.” The boy frowns at him, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Well, dear Daniel, at the time that was what I most desired. My own little family, with Maddie as my wife, and you as my son.”

Danny quirks his eyebrow. “At the time? So not anymore, then?”

“No, not anymore. I’ve gotten what I always wanted, even if not the way I had envisioned it. A loving family to call my own.”

Danny floats over, wrapping a cold arm around his shoulders, and with a smile so bright that Vlad knew he had made the right choice. “Aww, I love you too V-man!”

Yes, Vlad thinks to himself, his plans had worked out quite fine. He had sown the seeds and finally harvested the results, and even if they weren’t quite what he had planned, the results were far beyond what he could have hoped for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vlad has done some pretty terrible things (and had plans for far worse), but I'm a sucker for redemption arcs. Plus! In this AU he barely did anything, because of a variety of reasons. I... put an embarrassing amount of thought into this AU and how all the canon stuff works out tbh.


	6. Unearthed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the stress of the events that followed the Accident, as Danny struggled to control his new-found ghost powers and as ghosts started attacking Amity Park, the trio completely forgot about the body that they had buried in the woods.
> 
> Until someone found it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Suggested character death, descriptions of corpses
> 
> I cut out the first 2k words of this fic so hey, no graphic descriptions like I had intended. Although I still have it saved so if anyone is interested in reading about how this whole mess started in-universe lemme know and I'll post it separately.

Crime in Amity Park, real actual crime, committed by humans, was exceedingly rare. Robberies and muggings were practically unheard of, never mind murders. And while ghosts attack the city almost constantly, physical injuries are very rare. Sometimes people get injured in the general chaos, hit by debris for a ghost fight, or get threatened, but no one ever gets killed.

So when a corpse is found in the woods near Amity Park, the whole town becomes abuzz with rumors and gossip.

The police are called, the crime scene thoroughly investigated, and the corpse is studied, but the public is told nothing except that a body was found.

But good God, were the police unprepared for this. Working in Amity Park prepared them for a lot of weird things, the job lending itself not to strict, highly experienced police officers but rather the adaptable younger officers, and most of them had never dealt with actual dead bodies like this.

And the investigation wasn’t easy, either. It clearly wasn’t a recent crime, the body partially decayed and burned beyond recognition. They can’t even prove if a ghost was involved or not, because any traces of ectoplasm that might have been left behind would have evaporated a long time ago.

The slight body is brought back, and carefully examined. It was almost impossible to determine the cause of death, but there didn’t seem to be any injuries. They determined it was likely that this person had been killed by the same thing that had scorched them so badly, but they weren’t sure what, exactly, that had been.

It was much easier to determine who this person had been. The corpse was male, a mere teenager at the time of their death. And while he had been burned beyond recognition, there were more ways to identify someone than just by looking at them.

When the results of the DNA comparison came in, every single person on the case was baffled. They decided to verify it by comparing the teeth of their corpse with the dental records of the DNA match.

It was an exact match.

There was only one problem; the person that was a perfect match for the corpse from the woods was still alive.

It was one of the newer officers who suggested that they didn’t actually know if he was, in fact, alive. And while this might normally get a person send off to get their head checked, it actually wasn’t too crazy for Amity Park.

The boy was still in the city, still lived with his parents and still attended school, but he hadn’t been to any medical check-ups in close to two years. It was absolutely possible that the boy was a ghost.

Which led to the next concern: was the ghost that lived among them in the city the teen’s own ghost, or was it a different ghost pretending to be someone he wasn’t?

While the ghosts of Amity Park weren’t known to kill people, they had been known to pretend to be alive. Some could even pull it off so convincingly that no one knew until the ghost blew its own cover, usually in a fight with Danny Phantom.

So the possibility that a ghost had attacked an innocent teenager, killed him, and then replaced him, was rather unnerving. It was made all the more chilling by the knowledge that this boy had died and no one had noticed until they found his corpse.

This opened the way to another horrifying possibility, however. Maybe the boy’s parents never noticed because they were the ones to kill him.

They had always been ghost nuts, even before Amity Park saw its first ghost. And if the boy had died two years ago, as his records implied, then that would have been just before the city had its first spectral visitors. The parents might have found a way to guarantee that the boy would become a ghost, and killed him so they had proof.

But the police weren’t paid to speculate, they were supposed to find evidence and _prove_ what happened to the boy. And so they set out to FentonWorks, where they interviewed every member of the family separately.

They couldn’t diverge too much information during the interviews, of course, and the people they were interviewing weren’t the easiest either. Between the adult Fentons, who would constantly ramble about ghosts and their inventions, the older kid, who seemed to be analyzing every single word the police said (and even what they _didn’t_ say), and the youngest kid, the possible victim, they had their work cut out for them.

The parents seemed genuinely upset by the news that the dead body that had been found was a teenager, and immediately jumped on the possibility that a ghost was responsible. While this would be rather suspicious for most people, it was rather characteristic for the Fentons. Between their responses, and their general behavior towards their family, it was declared unlikely that they were responsible for the death of their own son.

The oldest child, the daughter, also carried no answers. When she was asked if her brother had changed over the last years, she had shrugged them off and told them that “he was a teenager, it would be worrisome if he _hadn’t_ ”. Her gaze was sharp and calculating, however, and she was clearly taking in every word they said. They ended up cutting off the interview early, afraid of letting anything slip.

Her younger brother, the ghost, the possible victim, was the most befuddling. When they asked him if he had heard of the body that was found in the woods, he didn’t respond with recognition. No, his eyes lit up with fury that had the officers shaking in their shoes, and clenched his fists as if he would go out and beat up the person responsible right that instant if he had known who it was.

It was clear that this ghost wasn’t the killer of Daniel Fenton, but this just raised more questions. Because if he wasn’t the killer, and he didn’t know that it was _his_ body that they had found (didn’t even seem to consider that possibility), then who _was_ this ghost? Was it the ghost of Daniel who had forgotten about his death when he became a ghost? Or was this just some random ghost who decided to pretend that he was Daniel, and then never stopped?

When the officers met back at the station to discuss everything they had learned (and everything they hadn’t), they could only come to one conclusion; they had to interview the ghost again, but this time with a focus on identifying him.

This proved to be easier said than done, however, because they had to achieve this without the ghost finding out that they had found the body of the boy he pretended to be.

  


The spirit that may or may not be Daniel Fenton was brought into the police station for further interrogations. He seemed to have gone through a personality shift since the last time, however, and played the act of a stubborn teenager far more than he previously had. He was obstinate and bull-headed, eyeing them with utmost suspicion and constantly questioning _why_ they were asking him this.

When the man leading the interrogation finally reached his wits end and growled out “Dammit boy, we _know_ you’re a ghost” the specter freezes up, eyes blown wide with barely hidden fear.

“I- I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he stammered out. “Me, a ghost? That’s- that’s crazy.”

The interrogator sighed deeply. “Look, we identified the body as Daniel Fenton’s. That means that you,” he poked Danny in the chest with a finger, “are either Daniel’s ghost, or you’re some spirit playing pretend.”

Danny scowled at the officer and swatted away the finger, speaking with venom dripping from his voice, “I’m no _pretender_.”

“So then why not tell us who killed you? Because I gotta tell you kid, when we asked you about the body last time, you looked ready to murder whoever did it.”

Danny hunched in on himself, blushing, with embarrassment of all things clear on his face. “I… forgot.”

“You _what_?!”

The boy shrunk in even further, rubbing the back of his neck in what had to be a nervous gesture. “I forgot about the body.”

The officer blinked at him, stunned. “You _forgot_ that you died?”

“Not that I died! Just- just where we left the body.”

The interrogator groaned, sinking his head into his hands. “Can you at least tell us who did it? Who was this ‘we’?”

Danny smiled sheepishly, still rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh, it was an accident. And my friends and I, we just kind of, uh, panicked. So we buried the body and then just kind of forgot about it?”

“Well, we’re gonna need official statements from you and your friends. And then we’ll have to inform your parents.”

“Wait, no, you can’t! They’re ghost hunters! Why do you think we decided not to tell anybody?!” Danny scrambled up, the panicked look back on his face.

“Look, it’s just protocol, alright?” the officer attempted to soothe, but Danny just glared at him.

“Really, you have a protocol for ‘a kid dies in an accident and comes back as a ghost’?”

“Kid, just calm down, okay? I promise you that it’ll be fine, your parents clearly love you.”

Danny huffed, but slumped back into his seat.

“Fine, so what now? Official statements from the three of us, and then? Gonna officially declare me dead? Send me off to the Ghost Zone? Set ghost hunters on me to make sure I don’t turn malevolent?”

The officer glared at him, but Danny ignored him.

“Well, if Phantom hasn’t kicked you out of the city then you’re probably fine to stay.” Danny snorted at this, but the officer didn’t understand why.

“As you guessed, we don’t have protocol for this. Most people outside Amity don’t know ghosts exist. Hell, most people _in_ Amity don’t even know that they could pass for living as well as you apparently can.” Danny muttered something under his breath, but the officer didn’t catch what he said and chose to ignore it.

“So, we’ll take your statements, and then we’ll talk with your parents to figure out the rest.”

And so Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley found themselves at the police station, where they managed to comfort a once-again panicking Daniel Fenton, before all three had their statements taken.

  


Danny rode in the back of the police car with the same officer that had interrogated him earlier that day, and a female officer he didn’t recognize. He felt like he heading towards the gallows, ice-cold dread pooling inside him.

He also felt somewhat guilty that he hadn’t told the officers the truth, and hoped that it wouldn’t come back to bite him. But the truth was just so ridiculous, they probably wouldn’t have believed him anyway. Better to play along, he thought. Not that that stopped him from feeling guilty.

Instead he tried to focus on calming himself down. He took a deep, if somewhat shaky, breath. Calm down Fenton, he bit at himself. You’ve faced off against ghosts like Pariah Dark, but you’re scared of your own parents? They love you, they’ll accept you, and it’ll be fine. They don’t even know you’re Phantom! They have no reason to hate you!

All too soon, and simultaneously not soon enough, they reached FentonWorks. Danny followed the officers to the front door, still trying to cork up his overworked emotions. He’s so occupied that he doesn’t even listen to the conversation between the police and his parents, just trailed after them and slumped into a chair in the living room.

He heard the male officer clear his throat, and snapped back to attention, cringing slightly at the worried expressions on his parents’ faces.

“So, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton. As you know, we found the body of a dead teenager in the woods near Amity Park recently.”

His mom frowned, glancing between the officer and Danny. “Yes. But how is this related to Danny?”

“Well, we successfully identified the body-” Oh no, nope, too brash. They needed to break this to his parents with more care- “and we’ve received statements confirming it,” the man just kept talking, completely oblivious to Danny’s panicking. “The body belongs to your son, Daniel Fenton.”

Danny froze up, fingers digging into the armrests of the chair with almost enough strength to tear them, anxiously gazing at his parents. His mental cursing fell silent, dread washing away all his emotions until he just felt numb.

The expressions on his parents’ faces hardened, and their hands shifted to reach towards the anti-ghost weapons they carried, and _yep_ , this was going exactly as he feared. But he stayed still, frozen in place.

The moment was broken when his mother swung up an ecto-gun, however, which was knocked aside by the female officer, the shot just barely missing Danny. He panicked, went intangible on instinct, and fell through the chair and onto the floor behind it.

“A dirty ghost replaced our son! Some filthy piece of ectoplasm killed our Danny and replaced him!” his dad roared, and Danny remained crouched behind the chair. He could feel adrenaline bubbling up, his core releasing ghostly energy into his body, and he was struggling to stop himself from transforming.

“Please calm down! We assure you that no ghost killed your son-” “And how can you be so sure?! It’s been pretending to be our son for _lord_ know how long, how do you know it didn’t lie about- about killing him?”

Danny forced himself to block out the shouting match, glancing around the chair and catching the eye of the male officer. The man turned slightly towards him, then jerked his head towards the front door almost imperceptibly. Danny frowned at him before understanding dawned on him, and he turned himself invisible but remained in place for another moment to confirm. The man nodded, and Danny took this as a dismissal. He hesitated for another moment before turning intangible as well and launching himself towards the nearest wall, phasing through it.

Once outside, he confirmed that no one could see him, and then retained visibility again, having dropped his intangibility the moment he was through the wall. He stopped for a moment to think, trying to figure out what to do next. He checked that he still had his phone on him (he did, thankfully), and shot a quick text to Sam and Tucker, asking if he can stay over at one of their houses.

He stuffed the phone back into his pocket before they answer, deciding to go on a patrol first, to blow of some steam. He reached out to his ghost core and let the cold power flood over him, transforming him into Danny Phantom.

Turning invisible once again, he launched himself into the air. He retained visibility again somewhere in the clouds, but can’t bring himself to care.

  


Several hours later, while on patrol with Sam and Tucker, he received a text from Jazz. It simply read “mom and dad think that a ghost killed Danny and replaced him, wtf?” and Danny can’t stop the snort that comes through. God, what a mess.

“Hey guys, I gotta go talk to Jazz. I’ll meet you back at Tucker’s place, okay?” Receiving two nods as answer, he quickly texted Jazz (“omw”) and shot off towards FentonWorks.

He hovered outside her window and knocked, then entered as she nodded at him. He opened his mouth to explain himself, but Jazz was faster.

“So, what on Earth is this about?” she snapped at him, and he rubbed the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly.

“Well! When the accident happened and I became half-ghost, I may or may not have left behind my old, fully-human body. And since we were kind of, you know, panicking, we decided to bury it in the forest so no one would ever find out what happened.”

Jazz stared at him, incredulous. Danny hunched up in response, blushing in embarrassment.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I thought we were past lying to each other, Danny.”

“We are! I just… I just kind of forgot?” he muttered, guilt lacing his voice.

“Oh my God, please tell me you’re joking.” Jazz stared him in the eye, then sighed. “Danny, how on Earth did you forgot about the fact that you buried _your own corpse_ in the fucking woods.”

“Look, the Accident was a really confusing time, and then I had to learn to control my ghost powers, and then ghosts started attacking and we just kind of forgot, okay? Now will you please help me explain this to mom and dad so they’ll stop shooting at me?”

Jazz looked at him with an expression he couldn’t read, but she put her hand on his shoulder and pulled him into a hug. “Of course, little brother. We’ll figure this out, okay?”

Letting go again, she put her hands on her hips and put on a determined expression. “So, first things first. How much are you going to tell them?”

“Uh, everything, I guess. Well, except for the Phantom part, they don’t need more encouragement to shoot at me.”

“You’re not going to tell them about Phantom? Are you sure?”

“Jazz...” He sighed. “If this goes well I’ll tell them, okay?”

She nodded, before cutting back to the original subject. “Alright, so you’re going to tell them that you got into an accident with the Portal, and that you instantly became a ghost, and that you freaked out and decided to bury your body and pretend nothing happened. Does that sound about right?”

“Yeah, I guess so. You think that that’ll be enough?”

“Of course it will be enough. The only reason they freaked out is because they care about you. Do you have somewhere to stay for tonight?”

“Uh, yeah, Sam and I are sleeping over at Tucker’s place.”

“Good, good. Come by tomorrow after breakfast and we’ll talk this through with mom and dad.” Seeing his hesitation, she spoke again. “Danny, don’t worry about it. Everything will be fine, I promise. Now go and get some sleep, because you need it.”

He smiled at her and disappeared. She shook her head, a fond smile on her face.

  


The next day, not long after his family would normally have breakfast, Danny found himself hesitating in front of the door of the house. He took a deep, fortifying breath, and then walked in.

He could hear quiet chattering coming from the kitchen, and made his way over. He watched them for a moment from the doorway before his dad spotted him.

“Danny-boy!” he boomed, before remembering their last interaction, face souring instantly. His mother’s face also fell, but Jazz smiled at him and grabbed their parents before they could pull out any of their weapons.

“What are you doing here, _ghost_?” his mother hissed. “Haven’t you caused us enough pain yet?”

Danny winced, and Jazz glared at their mother before chastising her. “Mom! I asked Danny to come over, not that it should have been necessary since he _lives_ here.”

“Jazz, that’s not your brother. That’s some foul ghost playing a sick game of pretend.”

“No, you listen to me! Danny has been a ghost for _two years_ , but he never told you. And this is exactly why! He came over to tell you what happened, and you won’t even let him!”

“Jazz, you _knew_? How- how long have you known?” Danny had never heard his dad so quiet, and he hated it. He hated everything about this entire conversation. He could barely stop himself from turning invisible.

“I’ve known for a while now, but he told me about a year ago. And yes, I know the entire story.” She looked over at Danny, hoping that he would take over to tell his story. Seeing that Danny wasn’t about to join the conversation, however, Jazz kept going. “Do you remember when he had an accident in the lab, in freshman year?”

His parents glanced at each other, and loosened up a little. “Was that it? Was it- was it one of our inventions that- that killed our son?”

Danny sighed, drawing the attention back to him. “Yeah. It was the Portal. I uh, I turned it on while I was inside.” He shrugged at them, smiling sheepishly. “You put the on button on the inside, that’s why it didn’t work.”

“Sufferin’ spooks,” Jack swore quietly, eyes locked on Danny.

“But if it was the Portal, then how did your,” her breath caught for a second, “your body end up in the woods?”

“I panicked, okay? We didn’t know what to do and we were all really freaked out so we decided to just bury my body in the woods and pretend it never happened.”

“Oh sweetie,” Maddie mumbled, standing up from her chair and walking over to Danny. She touched his face, gently, before pulling him against herself, hugging him. “Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry.”

A second pair of arms wrapped around the two of them as his dad joined in. “Oh Danny-boy,” he muttered, and Danny was shocked to see tears forming in his dad’s eyes.

“It’s- it’s okay. You didn’t mean it. I don’t blame you for panicking.”

Finally they pulled away again, and he saw his family all smiling at him, and he found that he couldn’t keep the truth to himself any longer.

“Actually,” he glanced over to see Jazz nodding her approval, and steeled his resolve. “Actually, there’s something else that I need to tell you. Uh, promise you won’t freak out?”

“Of course Danny-boy, you can tell us anything!”

He stepped away from them, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. Then he called on his ghostly core, and let its power wash over him.

“I’m, uh, I’m Danny Phantom too. This,” he made some vague hand motions towards himself, “is what I actually look like as a ghost.”

Suddenly he was drowning in warmth as his father hugged him again, ruffling a hand through his hair. “Look at my son the ghost hunter! I knew you would follow my footsteps!”

“Well, I still think that Phantom has done some… questionable things, but I’m guessing that you have an explanation for all of that?”

Seeing that Danny was getting overwhelmed, Jazz cut back in. “He does, trust me. He has told me everything.”

His mom nodded, and then smiled at him. “Then I must say that I’m proud of my ghost-hunting son as well. My own little superhero, huh?”

She re-joined the hug as well, and Danny’s dad grabbed Jazz and pulled her in as well. Danny melted away in the familial love, feeling far happier than he had in a long.

He was in such a state of bliss that his next words slipped out without intending it.

“Also I’m only half-ghost, I’m not actually fully dead.”

“WHAT?!”


	7. Spells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny has always known that, unlike his friends, he has no magic. So when he tries again, years later, the results are rather... unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No content warnings apply. Also, hooray, we're ending on a cheery note! I've been playing around with an idea for a Harry Potter x Danny Phantom crossover fic, and this one-shot kinda serves as an introduction to the setting? It only includes the setting of HP, none of the characters, so it's not really a crossover yet.
> 
> I would also like to note that it's been years since I've seen the HP movies, and even longer since I last read the books (and not even the original books, but the translated Dutch versions), so I've patched the setting together from what I could find on the wiki. So yeah, any inconsistencies or errors can thus be explained, and if you find any, please point them out to me so I can correct them.

The existence of magic was nothing new to Danny Fenton. He had known for years that both of his best friends were capable of it. He had known for almost as long that he had no magical abilities whatsoever.

He still attended their magic training, of course. Sam’s grandmother had no problem encouraging him, allowing him to participate during activities that didn’t require actual magic, and he often watched for the rest as well. Knowing which spells Sam and Tucker were capable of could be rather handy when they tried to prank him using their magic.

They don’t usually do so, of course, knowing that it was a bit of a sore point. Between Sam, who _technically_ comes from a magical family (even if her grandmother is her closest relative with actual magic), and Tucker, who is No-Maj-Born, Danny was the only one in their close circle of outcasts that couldn’t do anything special. In fact, the only reason why he was an outcast like them wasn’t even his own fault, but it was because his parents were considered crazy by the rest of the town.

He had already been friends with Tucker before they ever met Sam, but she fit in with them like fate had designed the three of them for each other. They had all been outcasts, Danny for his parents, Tucker for his love of technology, and Sam by her own choice, and they bonded over their shared condition quite easily.

Sam was, of course, ecstatic to discover she had magic. She hadn’t been aware of its existence (her dad was a Squib and refused to associate with magic) but Ida was more than happy to start teaching her when she showed signs of accidental magic.

Tucker’s first accidental magic was a little more surprising, as it usually was for No-Maj-Born wizards, but Sam managed to explain it to him, and then Ida explained it to his parents, and he joined Sam in her training.

And if the two of them knew, then of course Danny couldn’t be left out, magic or not. _Technically_ , he’s not allowed to know, International Statute of Secrecy and all that. But everyone involved knows that those three kids wouldn’t keep these sort of secrets from each other.

That didn’t mean that anyone told the rest of the Fenton family, of course. The adult Fentons were already quite fixated on ghosts, and no one wanted to find out how they would react to magic. And Jazz was too much of a skeptic for anyone to cross.

Despite the fact that they knew about magic (and were getting quite good at it), and despite the fact that it didn’t even work, the Ghost Portal that Danny’s parents had attempted to build in the basement still managed to catch the interest of Sam and Tucker. He went along with their enthusiasm, wandered inside, and found out why it didn’t work.

And after that, he wasn’t the only ‘perfectly normal’ member of their group of outcasts anymore.

Of course, being half ‘magical creature’ wasn’t quite the same as being magic, but having his own special powers certainly had its upsides. Downsides too, can’t have everything in life (half-life?) but still. Gotta see things from the positive side, and all that.

So the three of them cleared some extra time in their schedules to fit in a new kind of training, just for Danny. And just like he attended the magical training of Sam and Tucker despite the fact that he couldn’t do much, they helped him with his own ghostly training.

And after ghosts start attacking Amity Park, well… Sam and Tucker certainly get a lot more opportunities to use their magic these days.

They started their own research, trying to find which spells would serve them best in the field and practicing them while Danny was training his own powers, although their training often overlapped. No one ever studied how these spells effect ghosts, after all, let alone half-ghosts.

And so, barely two months after the Accident, Danny found himself in quite a dilemma. His hold on his ghost powers was still shaky, and he had managed to lose his transformation ( _after_ the ghost was captured, thank goodness) and couldn’t dredge up enough power to use his powers in human form either.

Which would be fine, except that Sam and Tucker had gotten themselves trapped in a locked building by the ghost that had attacked them. And while they had recently learned a rather convenient unlocking charm, they had been disarmed during the fight, and their wands had been left outside the building.

Danny eyed the wands in his hands rather judgmentally, like it was the fault of the _wands_ that they weren’t with their owners. They appeared to be in a good condition, which was lucky since none of them wanted to explain to Ida how they had managed to damage them.

He dragged his eyes off of the wands, and instead glared at the lock. For the first time in years he found himself cursing the fact that he was the only one of their group without magic. He _knew_ the spell, had seen Sam and Tucker use it so often that he had memorized the incantation and the matching movements. It would have been so easy.

He wasn’t actually sure what inspired him to try. He just raised up the wand in his right hand ( _willow,_ he duly noted, _must have been Tucker’s_ ), made the swishing movement, and shouted “ _Alohomora_!” like sheer force of will would make it work.

And then the door swung open, revealing the surprised faces of Sam and Tucker, and Danny stiffened in shock, staring at the wand in his hand.

They stood there for what felt like an eternity, blinking dumbly. Tucker snapped out of it first, gingerly prying his wand out of Danny’s hand and inspecting it.

“Danny… How did you do that?”

His question jarred Sam and Danny back to life, and Danny quickly handed Sam her wand back as well.

“I… don’t know?”

Sam, who had pocketed her wand almost immediately, turned back to look at the door that Danny had somehow unlocked. She crouched next to it to inspect the lock closer.

“Well, you didn’t quite nail the Unlocking Charm, but you somehow managed to explode the lock without damaging the rest of the door, so I gotta applaud you on that.”

“Hooray for not doing more damage than necessary?” Danny said, smiling rather sheepishly.

“Why did you even have my wand raised if you were using some kind of ghost power anyway? Wait, how did you even blow up that lock? New ghost power?” Tucker questioned as he, too, put away his wand.

“Uh, I think it might be a new power? But I don’t know.” Danny shrugged. “I was kind of out of ghost juice and I was thinking about how convenient it would be if I had magic like you guys, so I just kind of… thought of how you did that Unlocking Charm and tried to mimic it?"

Sam frowned at him before turning back to the door. The lock was partially exploded and looked rather molten, but there were no clear signs of ectoplasmic energy being involved.

“Well, based on what I’m seeing here, your new ghost power is either a really sad attempt at an ecto-ray,” she studiously ignored Danny’s disgruntled yelp, “or you can make things explode with your mind.”

“Or,” Tucker declared, “your new ghost power is magic.”

“Tucker, ghosts _are_ magic. _All_ Danny’s powers are magic.” Sam rolled her eyes at him, but Tucker ignored it.

“No! Well, yes I guess, but that’s not what I mean.” The other two glanced and shrugged at each other, then nodded for him to continue.

“See, I was thinking, we don’t really know much about the relationship between ghosts and magic. Typical wizarding ghosts aren’t affected by magic, and most spells don’t seem to have much of an effect on the Ghost Zone ghosts either. Additionally, we know that wizarding ghosts can’t use magic, even though they were capable of it while they were alive.”

“Okay, thanks for the summary Tucker, but we already knew all of this.” Tucker tutted disapprovingly at Sam, and then continued like she hadn’t interrupted him at all.

“Now, we don’t know _anything_ about how magic works with half-ghosts. If ectoplasmic energy and magical energy are some sort of counterpoints, as suggested by the fact that they cancel each other out, then Danny should have _both_ , right?”

“I… I guess? That makes sense, sort of,” Danny muttered, frowning in thought.

“So then why didn’t he show any signs of it until now?”

“Uh, duh? It works like his ghost powers. Haven’t you noticed that he accesses those way more easily when he needs them? His magic must work the same, or at least for the initial use. Maybe he’ll start using accidental magic all over the place now that he knows he can do it, or has unlocked it or whatever.”

Danny glanced at the two of them and decided to jump in before they could start a real fight. “Well, if that’s really the case then I should start paying more attention during your training with Ida.”

“Yeah, and we’ll have to make room during your ghost training to practice magic as well.”

Sam turned to frown at Danny. “And if this really is some sort of ghost-powered magic, you’re probably going to need a wand too.”

Danny blanched. “Oh no, I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“Yeah, were are we even supposed to _get_ a wand for you? There are no wizarding cities nearby, and we can’t ask Ida either.”

“Yeah, and we don’t even know if this is actual magic. I guess you can use our wands to figure that out, though.”

Danny nodded. “Yeah, at least to decide if this was some kind of coincidence. But uh,” he glanced around them, “maybe we should get going?”

“Oh crud, magic training is gonna start soon. We gotta hurry!”

 

* * *

 

Once the training with Ida was completed, the three of them moved to a quiet clearing in the forest, which they regularly used to practice magic.

Danny stood awkwardly, fidgeting with the two wands that his friends had given him. Said friends hovered around him, waiting for him to be ready.

“I don’t know guys, aren’t you supposed to feel some sort of connection with a wand to be able to use it?”

Sam rolled her eyes at him, but Tucker answered Danny before she had a chance to. “Nah, that only applies if the wand has chosen you. These wands have chosen us, so they won’t react to you like that, but you can still use them. Probably.”

Danny glared at him, eyes flashing green for a moment. “Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence Tuck.”

Tucker just grinned at him. “Hey, always happy to help!”

Sam kicked him in the shin, then turned to Danny as well. “So, which one are you going to use?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I guess I’ll try Tucker’s, because that worked last time, but if it doesn’t work I guess I can try yours too.” He shrugged, but handed Sam back her wand.

“Well, what spell are you going to try, dude?”

“I dunno. Some basic charm, I guess, something that isn’t dangerous to you guys. Any suggestions?”

Sam and Tucker glanced at each other, and Tucker shrugged. Sam rolled her eyes before turning back to Danny. “Maybe the softening charm, Spongify? The pronunciation and movements are fairly easy, and it doesn’t require anything specific to try it on.”

“Yeah, I guess that sounds good. Can you show it to me?” Danny gripped the wand in his hand a little tighter, clearly preparing himself to mimic Sam’s spell.

Sam whirled her ebony wand around, before pointing it at a fairly large stone that laid in the clearing. She made a swirling move with her wand, somewhat like an S, and forcefully said “ _Spongify_!”. A ray of pink light launched from the tip of her wand, hitting the rock. Nodding approvingly, she wandered over to it and pressed down. The rock squished down as if it was made out of rubber, before bouncing back into its original shape.

“Alright, now you try it.”

Danny made a doubtful face at her, but straightened out and pointed his borrowed wand at a different rock. He exhaled, focusing, and then repeated Sam’s movement, calling out the spell as required. The light that shot out of his wand was a weird mix of ectoplasm-green and pink, however, and the rock shattered into tiny pieces when the spell hit it.

“Uh, whoops?”

Sam shook her head at him but didn’t comment, instead wandering over to what was left of the rock. She grabbed one of the pieces, squashing it in her fist. It gave easily, as if it were made out of rubber.

“Well, it worked, more or less.”

Tucker snorted. “Must’ve somehow mixed in ecto-energy, then. Maybe it’s a side-effect from being half-ghost?”

Danny frowned at them, but walked over to Sam to take a closer look as well, grabbing a piece of the rock. Like she said, it had turned rubbery and bouncy.

“So I guess we were all right, sort of. It’s both magic, like Tucker suggested, and an ecto-ray, like Sam thought.” He tossed the shard up, catching it again before it hit the ground, and frowned pensively. “Maybe I can learn to filter out the ecto-energy when I’m trying to do magic.”

“And I guess we’ll have to add in magic training for you, in addition to your regular ghost power training. Geez Danny, overpowered much?” Sam grinned at him as she said it, and Danny smiled back.

“Yeah, well, wait until I get around to using my powers to prank you guys back.” The smile on his face twisted into something wicked as he said it, and Tucker repressed a shiver.

“Okay, well, now that we’ve proven that I was right and that Danny somehow got magic despite being a No-Maj before the Accident, how are we going to get him a wand?”

Sam frowned. “I don’t know. I guess I can look into the nearest wandmaker, and how we could get there without anyone noticing.”

Danny nodded. “And if this is anything like my regular ghost powers, and I bet it will be, I’ll probably have to deal with a bunch of accidental magic as well. Hooray.” He couldn’t sound less enthusiastic as he said it.

“Well Danny, at least your parents will probably just blame it on a ghost.” Tucker winked at his friend, who groaned in response.

“Tucker, I _am_ a ghost.”

Sam rolled her eyes in fond exasperation. “Boys, boys, you’re both pretty. Can we please focus again?”

Tucker laid his hand on his chest and gasped dramatically. “Aw, Sam, you think I’m pretty? You should tell the other girls at school, maybe one of them will agree and ask me out.”

Sam punched him in the arm in response and didn’t dignify him with an answer. Danny chuckled, but immediately wiped the smile off of his face when she turned to glare at him.

“Right, uh. We should go through all the spells that Ida has taught you two, and somehow sort them on how easy they were to learn, and how useful they’ll be. That way, we can figure out the best order for me to learn them in.”

Tucker nodded. “Since Sam is going to look into getting you a wand, I guess I can take care of assembling the initial list. We’ll have to go through it together to figure out which spells are most useful, though.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a plan. And it’s getting late, so let’s start heading home. We can get in a last patrol along the way.”

Both boys nodded their approval, and they set off through the woods again.

 

* * *

 

It had been just over a week since Danny discovered his new ‘ghostly’ magic. Sam and Tucker had continued to teach him magic. But it quickly became clear that his magic, at least with the wands of his friends, remained lackluster and, for lack of a better word, explosive.

Their search for a wandmaker hadn’t been very successful either, because the closest were still too far away for the three of them to reach. Danny could probably make it if he flew, but he didn’t trust his ghost powers enough to try. Not yet, at least.

As the others had predicted, his newly gained magic had started manifesting as it did for any untrained wizard or witch – with accidental bouts of magic. He knew he had to get a wand to learn to control it better, because his magic was even shakier than his ghost powers.

Danny stretched and yawned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with his hands. He had had a surprisingly good night’s sleep, with no ghosts disturbing his rest. He dressed himself quickly, grabbed his homework from his desk, and went to leave for breakfast.

He stopped, frowned, and turned back to look at the desk again.

On his desk laid a narrow, rectangular box with a folded note lying on top of it. Danny walked back over and took the note, folding it open to read it.

_Daniel,_

_I have heard of your magical problems. This wand should alleviate some of your troubles. It is yew, with a thestral tail hair as core, 11.5” and fairly flexible. May it serve you well._

The handwriting wasn’t one that Danny recognized, and there was no signature of any kind to show who had written the note. Danny turned his gaze back towards the box. He hesitated for a moment, but grabbed the lid and pulled it off.

Lying in the box was a rather elegant wand, its pale wood standing out starkly against the dark fabric inside the box.

Danny frowned to himself, but reached out towards the wand. The moment his fingers touched it, he shivered, and he pulled away immediately.

“Alright, that’s… strange,” he muttered to himself, still looking at the wand. Somehow, someone had brought him a wand in the middle of the night. No one in his family knew about magic, so they couldn’t have done it. Sam and Tucker wouldn’t have kept it a secret if they had found one, and they couldn’t have gotten in Danny’s room anyway. A ghost, then? But his ghost sense hadn’t gone off all night.

He put the lid back on the box, tapping his fingers on the outside of the box while he considered his options. Finally he took the box and the note that came with it, and put both in his bag. He would have to talk it over with Sam and Tucker when he got to school.

 

* * *

 

“Woah dude, hang on. You’re saying that somehow a wand ended up on your desk, and your ghost sense hasn’t gone off all night? You’re right, that _is_ pretty suspicious.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, if we can find a quiet spot we’ll check it during lunch. Do you know anything about it?”

“Well, the note said that it’s made out of yew, with a thestral tail hair as core. Not that I know what a thestral is, or that I have any way of knowing if the note is right.” Danny shrugged.

“I think a thestral is a type of magical horse, but I’m not sure...” Sam trailed off, before snapping back into focus. “Anyway, we should figure out if the wand is safe to use, and if it works for Danny. The details don’t matter.”

“Sounds like a plan. But let’s get to class before we’re late.”

“Yeah, last thing I need is another reason for Mr. Lancer to give me detention. Again.”

 

* * *

 

“Okay, so it looks like the wand is, in fact, safe. Tucker and I can both use it, although the results are…” she trailed off.

“It reacts as unpredictably to us as our wands react to Danny. So it should work like a charm for you! Give it a shot, Danny!” Tucker cut in, grinning at Danny, who rolled his eyes in response.

“Yeah yeah, calm down already.” He accepted the wand from Sam, rolling it around in his hand. It felt right to hold it, like it tapped into his ghost core, but in an almost pleasant way, instead of the unpleasant cold that came with his ghost sense.

He straightened himself out, holding the wand out like the weapon it was, and pointed at the target they had brought. He took a moment to focus, pulling back on his ghostly energy as much as possible.

“ _Spongify_!”

The light that came out of the wand was an almost flawless pink, and the target shuddered when it hit, but not even a scorch mark was left behind.

Sam nodded her approval, and walked over to test the results. Even from the other side of the clearing, it was clearly visible to both Danny and Tucker that the spell had worked as it should.

“Well Danny, looks like your mysterious wand donor knows what they’re doing.”

Danny snorted. “Yeah, guess so. I wonder who it was, though.”

“Well, if you ever find out, you should thank them,” Sam said, having made her way back over while the other two talked.

“Definitely. Anyway, Danny, you up for some more magic training?”

“Heck yeah, let’s do it!” Danny grinned at the two of them, and they grinned back. The next few hours were filled with magic, as the three of them worked to catch Danny up, and as Sam and Tucker got more practice in.

 

* * *

 

“Soooo, I figured out something new related to magic and my ghost powers.”

“Really?” Sam sat up, quirking an eyebrow at Danny. “What did you find out?”

“I think I can sense magic. It’s not like my ghost sense, it doesn’t trigger automatically when I’m near it. And I can only feel it, there’s no visual thing.”

Tucker also sat up to look at Danny. “How’d you figure that out, dude?”

The boy in question shrugged. “I was looking for one of my magic books yesterday and I couldn’t find it, and I was complaining to myself that I could sense ghosts but not magic, and then I realized that I could suddenly, I dunno how to describe it, ‘sense’ certain things in my room. And when I looked into it, I realized that everything that stood out was magical.” He smiled at them, rather sheepishly. “And I tried to trigger it again just now, and I realized that I could sense you two as well. So yeah, I think I can sense magic.”

Tucker had already whipped out his PDA the moment Danny started talking, and was now writing up a storm. “I’ve added it to our files. Do you think this is something you should practice during training as well?”

Danny frowned, then nodded. “Yeah. It’s kinda tough to trigger it on purpose, and maybe I can hone it to be more specific. It might be useful if I can sense wards and magical objects and stuff.”

“You’re right, that could be pretty useful. Who knows what kind of magical stuff we’ll run into now that more and more people find out about our Amity Park ghosts.”

“Alright, I’ll plan it into our training schedule, then.”

Sam snapped her fingers. “Actually, speaking of magical mysteries, Danny, did you ever figure out who gave you your wand?”

Danny blushed, grimacing at the same time. “Uh, yeah, actually. Clockwork said that he gave me the wand, but he was his usual vague self, so he refused to tell me why or how he got it.”

Tucker frowned at him, but shrugged. “I guess that makes sense. He would have known which wand was perfect for you.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, and he could have frozen time to deliver it, so you wouldn’t have sensed him.”

“Not sure why he didn’t sign the note with CW though, but I’m sure he had his reasons.” Danny looked at his wand, twisting it around between his fingers. “I’m glad he went out of his way to give it to me, though. We know now how much of a hassle it would have been to find a wand that works for me, and that’s not even taking into account the fact that we had no way of traveling around without telling Ida about my accident.”

“Man Danny, you must be pretty important if Clockwork went out of his way to break the rules for you.”

Danny mentally corrected Tucker, knowing that Clockwork interfered not once, but twice, but he remained silent. They didn’t have to know how close they came to Dan’s future. Instead he grinned at his friends.

“Yeah, guess so. We better get going, we don’t want to be late for magic training.”

Sam snorted. “Especially you, mister ‘no Ida I don’t have any magic I don’t know what you’re talking about’.”

Danny glared at her, playfully flashing his eyes, then rolled them. “I hear you. But I’m glad that Ida is fine with it. Training with you guys is fun, but having an actually experienced wizard there to help is pretty great.”

“Amen to that Danny, amen to that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so my great adventure in writing comes to an end! As I said in the notes on the first chapter, I'm new to the DP fandom, and I don't have much experience with writing in general (especially since English isn't my first language) so feedback of any kind is very much appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm new to this fandom, and I haven't really written anything in years, so feedback is very much appreciated, especially since English isn't my first language.


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